Appellate Bias Prevention Committee

Two appellate items of note in are today's DJ story Arab American lawyers mark heritage month with sold-out dinner. First, Supreme Court Justice Groban spoke at the event and "talked about the ways in which lawyers can secure bench appointments." He said "Being a judge is so much more [than traditional markers of achievement]," he said. "It's about being a good listener and having a high emotional IQ and not having an ego." He quipped, "We learned early on [during his tenure as judicial appointments secretary to Governor Brown] that nobody's ego went down when you put a robe on them."

Second, the article noted that honoree Rasha Gerges Shields, a Jones Day partner, was recently named to serve on a newly formed Supreme Court and Courts of Appeal Bias Prevention Committee. This Committee is chaired by Supreme Court Justice Jenkins, and includes justices from each district: Bendix, Boulware Eurie, Do, Fujisaki, Hill, Lie, McConnell, Peña, and 2d District Clerk/XO Eva McClintock.  The committee also includes has a variety of public and private appellate practitioners.

Today's DJ also has ABA study: Stanford Law produced most California federal clerkships -- Stanford Law School graduates landed the highest number of federal clerkships in California last year, but was third nationwide, after Harvard and Yale, according to a study from the American Bar Association.

• Nearly 26% of Stanford Law School’s 180 graduates landed federal clerkships, with 48, in California last year, the highest percentage of the state’s U.S. court clerkships in the nation, according to a study from the American Bar Association released Monday. However, the school was ranked third for federal clerkships nationwide, behind Harvard, at 77, and Yale, with 51.
• Data in the study suggests that 10 law schools were responsible for approximately 33% of the federal clerk hires in the nation, a situation that concerns some legal experts.
• The ABA data states that federal judges hired 1,150 graduates, which is just 3% of all 2022 graduates, from U.S. law schools.
• Additional California law schools that landed federal clerkships across the nation included: UC Berkeley School of Law, 20; UCLA School of Law, 20; Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, 10; UC Irvine School of Law, five; UC Davis School of Law, four; USC Gould School of Law, four; UC Law, San Francisco, three; Loyola Law School, three; Southwestern Law School, two; University of San Francisco School of Law, two; and California Western School of Law, one.

Law.com has Senators Debate Constitutionality of Imposing Ethics Law on Supreme Court -- Senate Judiciary Committee splits along party lines over separation-of-powers issue.

The U.S. Supreme Court has drawn intense scrutiny for being the only judicial body not subject to a binding ethics code. A Senate panel on Tuesday debated whether Congress could even pass such a code under the Constitution.

Bloomberg Law has Stevens Papers Provide Window Into Supreme Court Relationships

The Library of Congress on Tuesday released case files and other documents Stevens kept from 1984 to 2005, which showed the justices decades ago wrestled with some of the same issues they struggle with today.