Judge Alex Kozinski

On Saturday, the number of women alleging Judge Alex Kozinski, a prominent force on the Ninth Circuit who regularly sent his law clerks to the Supreme Court, sexually harassed them reached 15. On Monday, Kozinski announced his retirement, effectively immediately.

Like so many other women in the federal appellate world, I had heard of Kozinski’s propensity for harassment and coercion. I’d heard, too, that at least one professor knew of it—I don’t know how they couldn’t—and factored female students’ likelihood of submission, essentially, into their recommendation process.

I was skeptical that he’d ever be held to account. It’d only happened once before in my memory.

Even until I arrived at Yale Law, I’d viewed a law degree—any professional degree, really—as instrumental. I knew nothing about the world of clerkships, these one-to-two-year stints with judges to which students committed years in advance. To enter the ranks of the legal elite, a top-tier school was important, I learned, but clerkships were critical.

The most successful candidates for clerkships are often those with strong links to that world already—not in the least because of how early judges begin hiring. In the past, judges hired 1Ls. That is to say, they hired students with only one semester of grades. The earlier judges hire, the more extreme the advantage of students with pre-existing ties to the institution, professors and judges themselves.

Not all clerkships are created equal—prestige-wise, at least. For the most coveted clerkships, those with “feeder” judges who send clerks to the Supreme Court, like Kozinski, professors’ recommendations are vital. Not the letter type, but the pick-up-the-phone variety. They dispense these favors selectively: Professors stand to gain when their picks snag prestigious clerkships because of the boost they give a legal career.

A clerkship can be a prerequisite for academia; for a practitioner, it’s a professional boost that translates to a financial perk if they go to a law firm. Each federal district or appellate clerkship is good for a bonus of $75,000; a Supreme Court clerkship is worth $350,000.

During the clerkship hiring process, students are expected to fly all over the country—on their own dime, of course, another barrier to entry—to interview on a moment’s notice. If given an offer they’re expected to accept on the spot or very soon thereafter. They’re at the mercy of the judges. Once committed, there’s no “out,” though these commitments are often made many years in advance.