Soon after I launched The Legal Accountability Project (LAP), I met with a Washington University in St. Louis School of Law (WashU Law) professor to talk about LAP’s work. There’s no love lost between me and my alma mater: after I was harassed and fired from my clerkship, I learned WashU Law administrators and professors knew the judge who harassed me had harassed another alum a few years earlier — but chose not to share that with me before I accepted the clerkship. I could have gotten over that, but for the fact that three separate deans subsequently told me they “don’t believe” I was mistreated by the judge I worked for. And the law school cancelled four LAP events in just three years, including one with another alumnus who’s a federal judge. So, it was unsurprising that this professor said: “You seem to think clerkships are a hazard, whereas I think there’s a clerkship for everybody.”
That framing stuck with me as LAP struggled to convinced law schools to subscribe to our Clerkships Database (“Glassdoor for Judges”). Some even tried to bar students from subscribing. Before LAP launched the Clerkships Database — serving thousands of students annually while collecting data on the incidence of negative versus positive clerkship experiences — school administrators framed LAP as “dissuading” students from clerking.
Not exactly. I encourage students to be mindful of who they clerk for and to be empowered consumers of clerkship information, in ways they historically were not. I discourage applicants from clerking for abusive judges. It’s disturbing that schools refuse to warn students about abusive judges, and all but two refuse to subscribe to LAP’s database — showing how little they care about students’ well-being, and forcing students to pay individually. Fortunately, students no longer rely solely on their schools for information, as long as they pay $50 to subscribe to LAP’s database.
Once LAP launched the Clerkships Database in April 2024, applicants finally saw for themselves just how hazardous some clerkships are, firsthand from clerks. Our data suggest around 30% of clerkship experiences are negative, based on over 2,000 surveys about more than 1,200 judges and information from every state, federal circuit, and U.S. district court.
Our data also indicate that around 1 in 17 federal judges are abusive, which aligns with the federal judiciary’s own data: as many as 106 judges (out of around 1,700) committed actionable misconduct by mistreating clerks in 2023, according to a climate survey released earlier this year. I shared that statistic with around 30 students at a LAP event: statistically, at least one or two in this room will endure abusive clerkships. Let that sink in.
It’s no surprise so many judges abuse their power: judicial chambers are particularly conducive to mistreatment. There’s an enormous power disparity between young law clerks and life-tenured judges. Importantly, federal clerks are exempt from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and all federal anti-discrimination laws: if they are harassed, discriminated against, unjustly fired, or retaliated against (or all of the above, in my case), they cannot sue to seek redress. Law clerks basically have no rights, and judges have legal immunity for harassing them.
Title VII can seem abstract. Here’s the reality: laws deter bad behavior. Workers don’t harass their co-workers (or, less often than they otherwise might), if for no other reason than they don’t want to get sued. Title VII puts the onus on the employer, if an employee complains about harassment, to investigate, address the problem, and discipline the offender: otherwise, the wronged employee can sue for damages. Exempting an entire branch of government means federal judges do not face this deterrent — there’s literally nothing legally preventing or dissuading them from mistreating staff.
This is compounded by the fact that there are no effective reporting processes, complaint mechanisms, or other avenues to seek help. Clerks rarely use the formal or internal complaint processes — the Judicial Conduct & Disability (JC&D) Act and the Employee Dispute Resolution (EDR) Plan. Juxtapose the judiciary’s 2023 climate survey with complaint statistics from that period: just three JC&D complaints in 2023, and just seven EDR complaints between 2021 and 2023, were filed by law clerks, due primarily to clerks’ fears of retaliation for reporting — retaliation they’re not legally protected against, since they’re exempt from Title VII. This means judges are rarely held accountable for misconduct. Students should do everything possible to avoid abusive clerkships, because the outcomes for mistreated clerks are bleak.
Consider three recent examples that made news — representing a miniscule fraction of judicial misconduct:
Second Circuit Judge Sarah Merriam was disciplined and publicly reprimanded in December 2023 for creating an “overly harsh work environment.” In July 2024, former Alaska judge Joshua Kindred resigned in scandal, after a Ninth Circuit Judicial Council found that he sexually harassed and retaliated against clerks. Kindred was recently disbarred. And former Minnesota federal bankruptcy judge Kesha Tanabe resigned in scandal in early 2025 after bullying and retaliating against clerks. That case never would have made news — and Tanabe would have evaded accountability, after the Eighth Circuit tried to protect her by pressuring a law clerk to withdraw their JC&D complaint — but for my Above the Law article. These examples — just a fraction of what comes over my transom at LAP — should tell you how seriously the federal courts take accountability and safe workplaces (not at all); how effective judicial complaint processes and discipline are at preventing and addressing misconduct (not at all); and the importance of selecting a clerkship based on the judge’s management style and workplace conduct (all-important).
Not all clerkships are hazardous. But as someone who does this for a living, far more are treacherous than anyone else would admit. Even most mistreated clerks never tell anyone they were mistreated: they’ve only shared in LAP’s Clerkships Database.
Law schools and legal industry leaders paint an overly rosy and one-sided picture of clerking — often while knowing realities they won’t admit — misleading students to believe clerkships confer only professional benefits, and they’ll develop a lifelong mentor/mentee or “familial” relationship with the judges they clerk for. Clerks refer to judges fondly, years later, as “my judge” (sometimes even after they were mistreated) — a term of affection that lionizes judges unnecessarily and contributes to the dangerous perception that judges’ workplace conduct should not be questioned, no matter how unethical. But this may be the exception, not the rule. In reality, most clerkships are jobs like any other: you’ll work for a year or two to check a box before advancing in your career. Creating unrealistic expectations sets clerks up to fail. Clerks take desperate measures to force a bond, including “nonjudicial tasks” like fetching judges’ dry cleaning, tutoring their children, and walking their dogs. They self-internalize failure, thinking they did something wrong, if those relationships don’t materialize.
I don’t believe there’s a clerkship for everybody. Not everyone should clerk. If the choice is between an abusive clerkship and no clerkship at all — don’t clerk. Ask why you want to clerk and what your goals are. At the same time, no one who wants to clerk should count themselves out. In fact, LAP’s database fosters greater equity by ensuring any applicant, regardless of law school, can pay $50 to access the same baseline information about clerkships — rather than the pre-LAP status quo, which restricted access to just a handful of students from top law schools.
What are the right questions to ask yourself before clerking?
- Why do I want to clerk?
- What are my goals for the clerkship?
- Where do I want to live after my clerkship, and will this clerkship help me get a job in this jurisdiction?
- What type of law do I want to practice, and will this clerkship help me hone the right skills and get a job in my chosen field?
- What kind of work environment am I looking for?
- How do I like to be supervised and receive feedback?
- When do I want to clerk — straight out of law school, or can I wait for a few years? If I wait, how will I fill those gap year(s) before my clerkship begins?
- How far am I willing to move to clerk? Where am I willing to live for a year or two?
There’s nothing wrong with clerking for the credential, rather than (or in addition to) seeking writing and research experience, litigation or appellate training, and insight into judges’ decision-making — as long as you don’t accept an abusive clerkship for the prestige. There is a wrong question to ask: What am I willing to put up with to clerk? Given the scarcity of federal jobs right now, some will still ask. If everyone applying for clerkships subscribed to LAP’s Clerkships Database, far fewer would endure mistreatment, because they’d truly understanding just how awful some clerkships are. Frankly, knowing the trash law schools provide, I worry about students who haven’t subscribed. Where are they getting information, if not from LAP, and how do they verify it?
Sadly, some will say, “I can handle it,” or “It’s worth it for the prestige.” Still others think it won’t happen to them. But I’ve counseled hundreds of mistreated clerks: they all said if they knew how bad it would be, they wouldn’t have accepted the clerkship. Frankly, my experience is not rare: it’s just one that’s rarely shared publicly, due to the culture of silence and fear surrounding the judiciary — one of deifying judges and disbelieving law clerks. To put it bluntly: if you’re applying for clerkships and you choose not to take agency over your career by fully informing yourself, you’re taking an enormous career risk, given the outsized influence of clerkships — a career you sacrificed three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to build.
Some people misleading students to believe there’s a clerkship for everybody have misaligned incentives and questionable motives: they want as many students as possible to clerk, for example. Others just lack frame of reference: clerks don’t regularly share negative experiences with them, or their clerkships were wonderful so they don’t understand how others’ couldn’t be. But the judiciary’s and LAP’s data both suggest that for every 17 students applying for federal clerkships, one will be mistreated. That’s a lot of destroyed lives and careers. Maybe it’s time lawyers were honest about the realities inherent in workplaces exempt from workplace laws.
Aliza Shatzman is the President and Founder of The Legal Accountability Project, a nonprofit aimed at ensuring that law clerks have positive clerkship experiences, while extending support and resources to those who do not. She regularly writes and speaks about judicial accountability and clerkships. Reach out to her via email at Aliza.Shatzman@legalaccountabilityproject.org and follow her on Twitter @AlizaShatzman.
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