The Influence Of Law Clerks

Framework
Law clerks could have most influence during the period of acclimation when justices defer to them for support. The higher level of deference may signal that judges has become acquainted with the clerk. Whatever job someone may be in, it is perceptible that one will become familiar with whom one works. Through association, people often share ideas and views amongst their peers, and in effect, are more susceptible or swayed to ideals of those closest to them. From casual or formal circumstances, the influence of clerks can grow upon the justices they hired to work with. By circumstance, people socialize with whom they work, thus, it may be reasonable to suggest that they can impact the beliefs of that individual, including justices.
To address this issue, there is evidence that clerks have politically donated more than the public. Although only about 5% of the public have made political donations, over 70% of the Supreme Court clerks have done so as they are aware that political donations have significant power over influencing the final verdict. The data of donations include approximately 100 million political donations; an individual’s political donations are arranged on a unidimensional ideological scale by Bonica (2014) from extremely liberal to extremely conservative. Finding out which party or campaign was donated to may lead to the discovery of their
One reason may be that the judge may want to reward their hard working law clerks by recommending them to work with the Supreme Court. The other reason may be that they know that law clerks can influence judges’ decisions; thus, if a judge knows that one of their clerks align with their ideology and has experience in influencing a judge’s decision, then, they could recommend the clerk to the Supreme Court. The law clerk may be either a great oral argumentator or is somehow talented in influencing the decision of others.
The more a feeder judge supplies the Supreme Court with law clerks, the more influence that judge of a lower court can influence the Supreme Court. Ideology may be transferred through the law clerks, and can influence decisions from the clerk when a lower court judge has a certain ideology and has supplied the Supreme Court with a high quantity of law clerks.
Some justices may only accept law clerks of similar ideology. However, there are justices that have accepted law clerks from lower court justices that do not have ideology alignment. Strategically, lower court judges would not recommend their trusted law clerks to justice of similar ideology as nothing would change in determining a justice’s decision. Therefore, a strategy implemented by a lower court judge may be to recommend their trusted law clerks to justices of moderate or opposite ideology than their