The Job No Young Lawyer Can Afford to Turn Down

When Mr. Justice Holmes ascended from the Massachusetts Supreme Court to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1902, he brought along his custom of each year picking a bright young clerk from Harvard Law School. Himself childless, he explained that his clerks gave him the fun of fatherhood without the pain, since his "sons" changed every year. Holmes's legal family became so popular that it soon grew into a sort of Rhodes scholarship of U.S. law. Clerking for the Supreme Court is now a launching pad for all kinds of later fame --be it heading the State Department (Dean Acheson), running U.S. Steel (Irving Olds), going to jail (Alger Hiss), becoming a leading sociologist (David Riesrnan), or returning as a Supreme Court Justice (Byron White). "It is much more than a meal ticket," explains one ex-clerk. "It's an incalculably valuable experience."

Picking Patterns. By federal statute, the eight Associate Justices are now each entitled to two clerks, and the Chief Justice to three. At $8,745, the pay is equal to the starting salary at top law firms, and there is an added $ 1,000 for the chief clerk, who serves the Chief Justice. Most law clerks, but not all, are fresh out of law school--the brightest in their class, the editors of the law review. Geographical preference and a loyalty to certain schools are the only patterns of prejudice that are known to attract the Justices, but in all its history the court has picked only one woman clerk, Lucille Loman, who served Justice Douglas in 1944, and one Negro clerk, William T. Coleman, who served Justice Frankfurter in 1948-49.

In the classic Holmes manner, Justice Brennan relies on Harvard Law Professor Paul Freund (who clerked for Justice Brandeis) to send him the best he has. Justice Douglas relies on a West Coast lawyer named Stanley Sparrowe. The others do more scouting and interviewing on their own. Justice Stewart is high on Yalemen, Justice White favors Westerners, Chief Justice Warren looks for Californians. Justice Black likes fellow Alabamians; Justice Clark tries to tap lesser-known law schools. Aspirants know all these quirks. "My best chance was either slipping in as one of Stewart's Yalies," said one of this year's hopefuls, "or under Warren's California quota."

Rich Crop. By last week, all of next year's clerks were known--18 of them, since Justice Douglas uses only one, plus a 19th for retired Justices Reed and Burton. Harvard's six clerks made up the lion's share--followed by Yale and Pennsylvania with three, Virginia and Stanford with two, Texas, Columbia and North Carolina with one. Seldom had the court had a richer crop. Samples:

> Harvard's Paul Dodyk, 26 (picked by Justice Stewart), is the son of a Ukrainian immigrant and Detroit auto worker, went to Amherst on a General Motors scholarship, made Phi Beta Kappa and went on to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. At Harvard Law School, he ranked seventh in his class, was a law-review editor, and while still a student himself taught U.S. tax law to foreign students.

> Yale's John H. Ely, 25 (Chief Justice Warren), is a summa Princeton graduate with the further distinction of having collaborated on a landmark Supreme Court case (Gideon v. Waln-wright) before he got out of law school. Ely researched Plaintiff Clarence Gideon's appeal while working for the Washington law firm that handled the case. Second in his class at Yale (magna '63), he has since been working for the Warren Commission investigating the Kennedy assassination.

> Penn's Stephen Goldstein, 26 (Justice Goldberg), is the son of a Philadelphia postal clerk, won a mayor's scholarship to college and earned a Phi Bete key. First in his class at the law school ('62), Goldstein matched the school's highest average in 30 years but failed to get a Supreme Court clerkship on graduation. Grabbed by a prestigious Philadelphia law firm, he later got a second chance to clerk and accepted because "I couldn't afford not to."

> Columbia's Dale S. Collinson, 25 (Justice White), the son of an Oklahoma lawyer, is a summa Yale B.A. First in his class at Columbia Law School last year, he was turned down for a Supreme Court clerkship. While he waited for his next chance, Collinson clerked for U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Paul Hays in New York.

Such is the prestige of Supreme Court clerks that some ultracautious Congressmen have accused them of Svengalian powers and have urged "security" checks on clerks to keep them from infecting the Justices with sinister notions. Contrary to legend, however, the "junior court" does not come close to running the Supreme Court. Clerks have been known to help draft an opinion, and they serve the function of conveying what their old professors think (often not much) of their new bosses' thinking. But mostly they toil away at screening certiorari petitions (appeals for review), writing memos that sum up the issues, and doing the research that goes into well-honed opinions.

Some clerks have extralegal duties as well. The late Justice Stone had his clerks accompany him on walks, and Justice Black until recently was suspected of picking clerks for their tennis skill. But real influence? On a Supreme Court Justice? Snaps Mr. Justice Brennan: "Judging is not delegated." Adds one ex-Warren clerk: "The Justices can't even change one another's opinion, and if they can't do that, no law clerk is going to change their minds."

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