2013.05.29

Philippa, Scarlett, before the Supreme Court Legal Assistant

This paper included in "American Supreme Court: everyone is equal before the law".

Philippa·Scarlett(Philippa Scarlett)Served as the Supreme Court judges American(U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice)Stephen·Breye(Stephen G. Breyer)And USA seventh district court of appeal(US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit)The judge·Williams(Ann C. Williams)Legal assistant. She is now a Washington law firm (Kai YiKirkland & Ellis) partner, and worked in the Department of Justice (AmericaU.S. Department of JusticeThe prosecution filing office (Overseas)Office Of Overseas Prosecutorial Development) service. Scarlett had lived in the Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, she provides the free service (ProBono) including win in USA right to asylum for torture survivors. In the following interview, Scarlett describes the Supreme Court Legal Assistant responsibilities.

Q: the Supreme Court Legal Assistant take what work?

Ask:The Supreme Court Legal Assistant take what work?

Philippa·Scarlett:Although the specific task of legal assistant every judge has each different, but American Supreme Court Legal Assistant is responsible for the work in general there are four types of:

Review case

The first category is 7000 appeal to help review the Supreme Court each year receive applications, its official name is called "certiorari" (writ of certiorari). With a few exceptions, the Supreme Court can decide whether to review of a case; in other words, for most of the appeal, the Supreme Court is to decide whether to review the case. Most judges are to participate in the team review the so-called "" (cert pool), each one of the justices legal assistant it by the decision to attend. Every week, submitted to the Supreme Court of appeals are divided into several groups, each group give a legal assistant. The assistants and then according to the requirements of the review and careful analysis of the case, and for all to participate in the review panel of judges prepare a memo. These memorandum of appeal summarized the legal complaint, make analysis to the assessment, whether the court has the right to decide the case, then whether or not to accept the application for appeal to make recommendations to the Supreme court. A judge in the memo, make their own assessment, the judge determines whether the hearing in the Supreme Court during every two Monday at the non open meeting on the application for review. After that, the judge often make their own legal assistant for further investigation on appeal. In this case, the legal assistant will prepare a follow-up memorandum to judge their. The justices in closed session held on the -- in addition to judge without any other supreme court staff to attend these meetings -- the application to discuss and to approve or refuse to accept the vote on each piece of appeal. The application must be at least 4 of the 9 justices who votes can be accepted.

Help the judge for hearing

In determining the appellate case, the Supreme Court has set a timetable, other parties that case and case had a special relationship -- the so-called "friend of the court" (Amici CuriaeSubmit a written defense -- according to the case). The court also set a date for the parties to the Supreme Court case for oral argument, to all judges. Second important legal assistant from the beginning of the Supreme court. Before the debate on the case, legal assistant to write you judge, they serve a bench memo (bench memorandum), preparing for final decision to help judges hearing and cases. In general, a judge of the Supreme Court agreed to a memorandum written summary of the admissibility of the case and the related legal analysis. The judge will often indicate its legal assistant parties to a lawsuit, not involved in the offer but possible legal issues important to how the court ruling in the case of the investigation. Legal assistant and then add the results of the investigation and Analysis on the memo. Every one of the judge on his office management approach is somewhat different, for example, not all the demands of its legal assistant judge memo written.

After oral argument, the justices closed door meeting, to discuss the case and the case of the vote. Verdict result depends on the 5 or 5 or more justices voted unanimously. If the chief justice and the judges in the majority vote, he will take the drafting of the legal opinion to himself or one of the justices vote majority. Judicial opinions given the verdict, and interpretation of the Supreme Court decision inference process. In American legal system, judicial opinions become part of the law, become a binding precedent, the judge must abide by the legal issues involved in the later the same or similar to a great extent in the case. If the supreme court disagreed -- in other words, if some justices hold different views on the majority in favor of the position, the award or reasoning -- so, these few justices in the most senior judge can write their own different opinions, but also to the work assigned to the other justices hold different views (if there is more than one judges disagree). For example, if the chief justice minority opinions, so with the majority opinion of the next most senior judge (according to serve on the Supreme Court and for years) decide who wrote the opinion of the Supreme Court (the majority), but by the chief justice who wrote the different opinions.

To assist in the investigation and drafting judicial opinion

Once a judge appointed representative of the Supreme Court justices drafting majority opinion documents (opinion), or decide to put forward different views, the legal assistant judges please draft memorandum to judge a case with the Supreme Court Library (sometimes with other library cooperation, such as the Library of Congress) a extensive investigation. Assist in the investigation and drafting judicial opinions is the third major tasks of the Supreme Court Legal assistant. The judges think that opinion draft content is complete, he / she will make a legal assistant will opinions finalized, send the other judges review. If the judicial opinion is a majority of the court's opinion, by each one of the justices hold the majority opinion of opinions are considered, and decided whether he / she is officially endorsed the majority opinion. Sometimes, the judge agreed opinions conclusion may please justice who wrote the opinion added a point or to do some modifications in the opinion. Legal assistant judge in charge of drafting opinions will agree to accept the modifications based on the judge, and then after the modification of representations again submitted for your justice review. This modification is repeated, until all the majority opinion have formally expressed the final text in favor of opinion. If there are different views -- may be more than one of the justices have different views -- every one of the justices hold different opinions will submit its opinion for all judges review. The judge wrote the majority opinion of the book is often added for justice dissenting arguments in opinions within the answer. To decide on the majority opinion and different views of the content, the legal assistant wrote the majority opinion and wrote the different opinions of justices and judgments records release Officer (reporter of decisions) to determine the final text a public opinion. This process includes the accuracy of all the citations in the judicial opinion of the audit, and ensure that the formal submissions in accordance with the Supreme court.

Opinions as soon as we release preparation, justice who wrote the opinion in a formal hearing orally announce to the public the decision of the court, the reasoning process and an overview of the verdict. Sometimes, the first draft of the justice will ask legal assistant their writing an oral statement.

Emergency appeal for help

The fourth major tasks of Supreme Court Justice legal assistant is to assist the judge to submit to the Supreme Court of appeal for emergency decision, most of which the application is requesting a stay of execution of prisoners put forward. The Supreme Court has about one or two times a week to receive such requests, sometimes is requested in a few hours before the execution of the death penalty. Each justices and were randomly assigned to treatment of a legal assistant emergency cases for investigation and analysis of the legal basis of the appeal, and then submitted to the court he / she served a judge agreed to a stay of execution or refuse to accept the vote. To delay the decision must have at least 5 justices vote.

Many resources the Supreme Court including legal assistant time, was used to submit an annual 7000Many appeals for review, decide whether to accept the case.

Therefore, the four main task is: the Supreme Court Legal Assistant drafting memorandum drafting, review, assist bench memo drafting judicial opinions, to assist the judges review for a stay of execution of the urgent appeal. In addition, some justices legal assistant drafting speeches or other speech to the public.

Ask: compared to your previous clerkship, in the Supreme Court have what different? With you in the other court legal assistants have in common?

Scarlett: to Supreme Court justice Stephen Breye (Stephen G. Breyer) as an assistant before I do, Ann Williams judge in Chicago Illinois seventh Federal District Court of appeal (Ann C. Williams) assistant. There are many differences between the two job. Perhaps the biggest difference from the fact, that the Supreme Court has the right to choose whether to appellate cases. If a party appeals from the federal trial court to the court of appeal, as long as the case with jurisdiction, the court of appeal willMustAcceptance.

But, with a few exceptions, the Supreme Court is not the case. Therefore, many resources the Supreme Court including legal assistant time, was used to annually submitted more than 7000 pieces of an application for review, decide whether to accept the case. In deciding whether to use its option and under the specific circumstances of the case when the Supreme Court agreed to hear, to consider a wide range of issues, however, the most important factor to make the Supreme Court review of a case is often, whether the federal court of appeal under federal law to make different decisions on the same issue, namely the existence of the ruling difference. If there is a difference, the Supreme Court will often intervene, make a clear decision on the legal issues, so as to establish a unified national standard, whether this problem originates from California, New York or florida.

Another big difference between legal assistant in the court of appeal and the Supreme Court to delay the execution of the application. On receiving such a request the court every one or two weeks; in the court of appeal, the number of such applications will be much lower. Therefore, the Supreme Court Legal Assistants spent a lot of time to assist the evaluation of emergency applications, some of which can be filed late into the night.

AskJudicial process: what would be surprising to our readers?

ScarlettCharacteristics: a Supreme Court justices often publicly mentioned is to live together in peace together, respectful relationship between colleagues. Although the Supreme Court ruling is sometimes very controversial cases, such as abortion, gun control or the right to vote, and the debate was the right decision of these cases, but they obviously very respect this mechanism each other and the Supreme court. And they said, they will not because of the differences of opinion affect each other between working relationship.

Ask:How do you feel about your legal assistant to serve on the Supreme Court?

Scarlett:

I can say, for justice Breye do assistant is an experience so far my occupation career the most abundant, the most substantial, I am grateful.

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the government of the USA.Philippa Scarlett: Although the specific task of legal assistant every judge has each different, but American Supreme Court Legal Assistant is responsible for the work in general there are four types of:

Review case

Help the judge for hearing

In determining the appellate case, the Supreme Court has set a timetable, other parties that case and case had a special relationship -- the so-called "friend of the court" (amici curiae) -- according to the case, submit a written defense. The court also set a date for the parties to the Supreme Court case for oral argument, to all judges. Second important legal assistant from the beginning of the Supreme court. Before the debate on the case, legal assistant to write you judge, they serve a bench memo (bench memorandum), preparing for final decision to help judges hearing and cases. In general, a judge of the Supreme Court agreed to a memorandum written summary of the admissibility of the case and the related legal analysis. The judge will often indicate its legal assistant parties to a lawsuit, not involved in the offer but possible legal issues important to how the court ruling in the case of the investigation. Legal assistant and then add the results of the investigation and Analysis on the memo. Every one of the judge on his office management approach is somewhat different, for example, not all the demands of its legal assistant judge memo written.

To assist in the investigation and drafting judicial opinion

Emergency appeal for help

Supreme Court justice Sandra day O Conner (Sandra Day O'Connor) (left) and her former legal assistant, Arizona Supreme Court judge Ruth V Mcgregor (Ruth V. McGregor) together.

Many resources the Supreme Court including legal assistant time, was used to annually submitted more than 7000 pieces of an application for review, decide whether to accept the case.

Q: compared to your previous clerkship, in the Supreme Court have what different? With you in the other court legal assistants have in common?

Scarlett: to Supreme Court justice Stephen Breye (Stephen G. Breyer) as an assistant before I do, Ann Williams judge in Chicago Illinois seventh Federal District Court of appeal (Ann C. Williams) assistant. There are many differences between the two job. Perhaps the biggest difference from the fact, that the Supreme Court has the right to choose whether to appellate cases. If a party appeals from the federal trial court to the court of appeal, as long as the case with jurisdiction, the court of appeal must be accepted.

Q: what are the judicial process would be surprising to our readers?

Scarlett: one of the characteristics of the Supreme Court justices often publicly mentioned is to live together in peace together, respectful relationship between colleagues. Although the Supreme Court ruling is sometimes very controversial cases, such as abortion, gun control or the right to vote, and the debate was the right decision of these cases, but they obviously very respect this mechanism each other and the Supreme court. And they said, they will not because of the differences of opinion affect each other between working relationship.

Q: how do you feel about your legal assistant to serve on the Supreme Court?

Scarlett:

I can say, for justice Breye do assistant is an experience so far my occupation career the most abundant, the most substantial, I am grateful.

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the government of the USA. Ask:

The Supreme Court Legal Assistant take what work?

Philippa Scarlett: Although the specific task of legal assistant every judge has each different, but American Supreme Court Legal Assistant is responsible for the work in general there are four types of:

Review case

Help the judge for hearing

To assist in the investigation and drafting judicial opinion

Emergency appeal for help

Many resources the Supreme Court including legal assistant time, was used to annually submitted more than 7000 pieces of an application for review, decide whether to accept the case.

Q: compared to your previous clerkship, in the Supreme Court have what different? With you in the other court legal assistants have in common?

Q: what are the judicial process would be surprising to our readers?

Q: how do you feel about your legal assistant to serve on the Supreme Court?

Scarlett:

I can say, for justice Breye do assistant is an experience so far my occupation career the most abundant, the most substantial, I am grateful.

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the government of the USA.

Role of Supreme Court Law Clerk: Interview With Philippa Scarlett

01 April 2013

Philippa Scarlett, former Supreme Court law clerk

This is part of the book The U.S. Supreme Court: Equal Justice Under the LawPublished by, the State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs

Philippa Scarlett has served as law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer and to Judge Ann C. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Now a partner with Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, she has also worked in the Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development at the U.S. Department of Justice. Scarlett has lived in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, and her pro bono work has included winning asylum in the United States for survivors of torture In this interview, Scarlett describes the responsibilities of a Supreme Court law clerk

QuestionWhat tasks do Supreme Court clerks perform?

Philippa ScarlettWhile the precise assignments of each law clerk vary somewhat from justice to justice, there are generally speaking four categories of tasks for which U.S. Supreme Court law clerks are responsible

Review the Cases

The first is to help review the more than 7000 petitions for Supreme Court review, officially called petitions for a writ of "Certiorari"That the Court, receives each year. The Supreme Court 's review of a case is discretionary, with a few exceptions; in other words, for the vast majority of petitions, the Court decides whether or not to grant the petition review for a decision on the merits. The majority of the justices participate in what is called the cert pool," "where cert is short for writ ofCertiorariCERT pool is comprised. The of the law clerks of each participating justice. Every week, a set of the incoming petitions is divided and assigned to each law clerk of the justices participating in the cert pool. Each law clerk is then required to review closely and analyze each of his or her assigned petitions and prepare a memo to all the justices participating in the cert pool. The pool memo, as it is called, summarizes the petition, analyzes the legal claims it makes, assesses whether the Court has jurisdiction to actually decide the case, and then makes a recommendation to the Court on whether or not to grant the petition. The justices read each pool memo and make their own assessment of whether or not to grant each petition under consideration at the justices' private conference, which is held about every two weeks when the Court is in session. Often, a justice will ask his or her law clerk to do follow-up research about a petition, in which case that law clerk will prepare a follow-up Memorandum for His or her individual justice. At the justices' private conference only the justices are present for these meetings, no other Court personnel the justices discuss the petitions and cast their votes to grant or deny each petition. A petition must receive the affirmative vote of at least four of the nine justices in order for the Court to grant it

Help Prepare the Justices for Oral Argument

Once a petition is granted, the Court sets a schedule by which the parties to the case, as well as other entities with a special interest in the case calledAmici curiaeOr friends of the Court are to submit their written arguments on the merits of the granted case. The Court also sets a date for the parties to come to Court and formally present their arguments orally before all justices of the Court. Here is where the second major task for Supreme Court law clerks comes in. Before a case is argued, the law clerks write a memorandum called a, bench memorandum, to their individual justices, which seeks to help their justices prepare for oral argument and the ultimate disposition of the case. Generally speaking, a bench memo analyzes the written briefs and the relevant law at issue in each case that the Court has granted review. Often a justice will ask his or her law clerk to research a particular legal issue that the parties did not cover in their briefs but may be important to how the Court resolves the case. The law clerk incorporates that research and analysis into the bench memo. Again, each justice runs his or her chambers a little differently, so, for example, not All justices require their clerks to prepare bench memoranda

After oral argument, the justices meet privately to discuss the case and cast their votes on the outcome of the case. The case is decided according to the votes of five or more justices. If the chief justice is part of the majority, he will assign the drafting of the legal opinion to himself or to one of the other justices who comprise the majority in a given case. That legal opinion is the document that decides the case and explains the Court 's reasoning for reaching its conclusion. In the U.S. legal system, judicial opinions become part of the law as binding precedent to which judges must defer in the next case that presents the same or a substantially similar legal issue. If the Court' s opinion is not unanimous in other words, if there are justices who dissent from the position or outcome or reasoning of the decision that received the majority of the justices' votes the most senior justice in then the minority will assign the drafting of the dissenting opinion, again either to himself or her Self or to another dissenting justice, if there are more than one. Thus, for example, if the chief justice is in the minority view, then the next most senior justice, determined by the number of years that person has served as a justice on the Supreme Court, who is in the majority will assign the writing of the Court 's opinion and the chief justice will assign the drafting of the dissenting opinion or opinions

Help Research for and Assist in the Drafting of Judicial Opinions

Once a justice is assigned the drafting of the Court 's majority opinion or decides that he or she will file a dissenting opinion, the justice will often ask the law clerk who drafted the bench memorandum of the particular case to do extensive research, in collaboration with the Court' s Library and sometimes other libraries such as the Library of Congress. Researching for and assisting the justices in drafting judicial opinions is the third major task of a Supreme Court law clerk. Once the justice feels that the draft opinion is complete, he or she will ask his or her law clerk to finalize the draft for circulation to the Court. The clerk then circulates the draft opinion to the other justices of the Court. If the judicial opinion is that of the majority of the Court, each justice who is in the majority reviews the circulated draft and decides whether or not to formally join the opinion. Sometimes, a justice who agrees with the conclusion of the draft opinion might ask the authoring justice to incorporate Another point or otherwise edit the draft. The law clerk who assisted the justice who authored the majority opinion will implement whatever changes the authoring justice agrees to and then circulates to the Court the revised draft opinion. This back-and-forth continues until all justices in the majority formally join the opinion. If there are dissenting opinions there can be more than one each justice will then circulate his or her dissenting opinion. Often, the justice who authored the majority opinion will incorporate into the majority opinion a response to the dissenting opinion 's arguments. Once the content of the majority and dissenting opinions is decided, the law clerks of the justices who authored the majority and the dissenting opinions will work with the Court' s reporter of decisions to finalize the opinions for publication. This process involves checking all the citations in the judicial opinion for complete accuracy and conforming the opinion to the official style of the Court

Once the opinion is ready for publication, the authoring justice will orally announce the decision to the public in a formal hearing and summarize the reasoning of the opinion. Sometimes, the justice will ask his or her law clerk to write the initial draft of this oral statement

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O 'Connor (left) and her former clerk, Arizona Supreme Court Justice Ruth V. McGregor

Helping with Emergencies

The fourth major task of Supreme Court clerks is to assist the justices in deciding emergency applications to the Court, the majority of which are applications by prisoners to halt their scheduled executions. Such applications come to the Court about once or twice a week and sometimes are submitted to the Court within a few hours of the scheduled execution. Each justice and one of his or her law clerks, who is randomly assigned to that particular emergency motion, researches and analyzes its legal claims. The law clerk then circulates to the Court his or her justice 's vote on whether to grant or deny the emergency application to halt the execution. A stay requires the affirmative vote of five justices of the Court

So those are the four main tasks of a Supreme Court law clerk: drafting pool memoranda, drafting bench memoranda, assisting with the drafting of judicial opinions, and assisting the justices in their review of emergency stay applications. In addition, some justices ask their law clerks to assist them in preparing speeches or other presentations for public audiences

QCompared to your previous clerkship, how was working at the Supreme Court different? Were there similarities with your other clerkship?

ScarlettBefore clerking for Justice Stephen G. Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court, I clerked for Judge Ann C. Williams on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, Illinois. There are many differences between the two clerkships. Perhaps the biggest difference stems from the fact that the Supreme Court has discretion to review a case. If a party appeals its case from the federal trial court to a court of appeals, the court of appealMustAdjudicate the case, so long as the jurisdictional requirements are satisfied

This is not so at the Supreme Court, with a few exceptions. Therefore, many of the Supreme Court 's resources, including law clerk time, are devoted to assessing the 7000-plus petitions filed each year and deciding whether or not to grant a case review on the merits. There is a wide range of issues the Supreme Court considers in deciding whether or not to exercise its discretion and grant a case review on the merits, but the most salient factor that often compels the Court to review a case is if the federal courts of appeal have decided the same issue of federal law in a divergent manner that is, if there is a split of authority. The Supreme Court will often intervene in such a circumstance to decide the legal issue definitively and thereby impose uniformity in the country on that legal issue, whether it arises in the state of California or New York or Florida, for example

Another big difference between the clerkships is dealing with the emergency stay applications in death penalty cases. At the Supreme Court, an emergency motion to stay an execution is filed about once every week or two; at the court of appeals level, the number of such motions is considerably fewer. Thus, Supreme Court clerks spend a considerable amount of time assisting the justices in assessing emergency motions, some of which can be filed late into the night

QIs there anything about the judicial decision-making process that would be surprising to our readers?

ScarlettA feature of the Supreme Court that the justices often mention publicly is its collegiality and civility. Despite the fact that the justices decide sometimes very contentious cases on, for example, abortion, guns, or voting rights, and may disagree vehemently about the proper outcome of those cases, the justices clearly respect one another deeply and also the institution of the Court and report that they do not let their difference in views on the law detract from their working relationship

QHow do you feel about being a clerk for the Supreme Court?

ScarlettI can say that clerking for Justice Breyer was one of the most enriching and fulfilling experiences of my professional life to date, and it is an experience for which I am very grateful

The opinions expressed in this interview do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government

The Supreme Court Legal Assistant Role: an interview with Philippa Scarlett

The Supreme Court Legal Assistant Role: an interview with Philippa Scarlett

2013.05.29

Role of Supreme Court Law Clerk: Interview With Philippa Scarlett

01 April 2013