This
week,
thousands
of
clerkship
hopefuls
apply
broadly
for
federal
clerkships
via
the
Online
System
for
Clerkship
Application
and
Review
(OSCAR).
Then,
over
a
several-day
period,
judges
extend
interview
offers,
and
students
hop
on
planes
or
trains
with
as
little
as
24
or
48
hours
of
notice
to
vie
for
prestigious
post-graduate
opportunities.
This
year,
as
judges
review
candidates,
the
reverse
happens,
too.
Judges
are
reviewed
in
The
Legal
Accountability
Project’s
(LAP)
Centralized
Clerkships
Database
(also
known
as
“Glassdoor
for
Judges”)
by
their
law
clerks;
and
judges
are
being
reviewed
by
applicants
as
potential
employers.
Rather
than
being
a
two-way
street,
historically,
the
opaque
clerkship
system
forced
students
into
vulnerable
positions,
applying
without
adequate
information
and
accepting
their
first
offer
without
informed
consent.
It’s
the
second
clerkship
application
cycle
where
applicants
benefit
from
exponentially
more
—
and
more
candid
—
information
about
judges
as
managers
and
chambers
culture.
LAP’s
database
has
served
more
than
2,000
student
and
recent
graduate
users.
Students
“do
their
research”
thoroughly
throughout
the
year
—
voting
with
their
feet
for
positively
reviewed
judges
(who
should
expect
more,
better
applicants)
and
against
bad
bosses
and
abusive
judges
(who
should
expect
fewer).
LAP’s
database
is
accountability
through
transparency,
since
there
are
few
things
imperious
federal
judges
hate
more
than
negative
feedback
traveling
through
the
grapevine
that
they
cannot
see.
This
is
my
vision
for
clerkship
transparency,
realized:
it’s
the
resource
I
wish
existed
as
a
Washington
University
School
of
Law
student
a
decade
ago
“applying
blind”
for
judicial
clerkships,
misled
into
an
unsafe
work
environment
because
my
school
lacked
information
about
judges.
Three
years
ago
this
month,
I
had
an
audacious
idea:
a
nonprofit
squarely
focused
on
judicial
accountability
and
clerkship
transparency.
I
launched
LAP
to
correct
injustices
I
personally
experienced
as
a
student
and
clerk,
with
little
more
than
a
great
idea
and
the
grit
to
see
it
through.
Democratizing
judicial
clerkship
information
and
opportunities
through
a
nationwide
database
was
something
many
thought
couldn’t
be
done,
and
a
few
thought
shouldn’t
be
done.
But
I
identified
an
unmet
need
for
candid
clerkship
information
and
set
out
to
fill
the
void.
I
was
determined
to
both
prevent
future
clerks
from
enduring
what
I
endured,
and
to
create
a
resource
for
mistreated
clerks
seeking
support
after
a
career-altering
clerkship
like
mine.
I
was
fueled
in
the
early
days
by
overwhelming
outreach
from
clerks
confiding
in
me
about
mistreatment.
Setbacks
galvanize
me:
I
was
activated
by
pushback
and
hostility
from
law
schools
and
the
federal
judiciary,
intent
on
maintaining
the
entrenched
status
quo
whereby
schools
maintained
a
competitive
advantage
in
clerkship
advising
by
gatekeeping
information,
and
judges
who
mistreated
clerks
got
away
with
it
year
after
year
by
preventing
applicants
from
discovering
toxic
work
environments
until
it
was
too
late.
LAP
has
blown
the
doors
off
the
clerkship
system
and
upended
the
federal
judiciary,
to
the
benefit
of
law
students,
law
clerks,
the
legal
industry,
the
judiciary,
and
society
generally.
We’ve
barnstormed
onto
dozens
of
law
school
campuses,
participating
in
over
50
impactful
clerkship
programs
to
educate
students
about
what
can
go
wrong
during
a
clerkship,
to
underscore
the
importance
of
being
mindful
of
who
they
clerk
for.
Students
understand
the
necessity
of
subscribing
to
LAP’s
database,
rather
than
blindly
accepting
their
school’s
existing
resources
as
sufficient,
because
only
through
LAP’s
database
can
they
identify
judges
to
avoid.
LAP
events
are
unlike
anything
else
students
attend
in
law
school,
because
I
tell
it
like
it
is.
No
one
else
is
willing
to
share
negative
clerkship
experiences
with
students
—
failing
to
understand
the
difference
between
discouraging
students
from
abusive
clerkships
and
discouraging
them
from
clerking,
period.
I’ve
worked
with
Congress
on
two
urgently
necessary
bills
—
the
Judiciary
Accountability
Act
(JAA),
which
would
extend
federal
anti-discrimination
protections
to
over
30,000
exempt
federal
judiciary
employees;
and
the
TRUST
Act,
which
would
close
the
loophole
in
the
federal
judicial
complaint
process
that
enables
judges
to
evade
accountability
for
misconduct
by
stepping
down,
as
former
Minnesota
bankruptcy
judge
Kesha
Tanabe
did
earlier
this
year.
Because
LAP’s
database
is
not
a
substitute
for
workplace
protections
or
legal
accountability
for
abusive
judges.
And
14
months
ago,
LAP
launched
our
innovative,
first-of-its-kind,
award-winning
Clerkships
Database,
transforming
clerkship
hiring
by
removing
information-sharing
from
law
schools’
control.
What
will
applicants
find
inside?
Over
1,600
candid
clerkship
surveys
about
more
than
1,000
federal
and
state
judges
from
every
state
and
federal
circuit.
But
more
important
than
its
size
—
several
times
the
size
of
the
largest
law
school
clerkships
databases
—
is
the
breadth
and
candor
of
information.
LAP
asks
the
right
survey
questions
of
clerks
to
compile
information
students
need
before
clerking:
hours,
tasks,
relationship
with
the
judge,
and
feedback
provided.
We
ask
about
mistreatment
and
whether
the
clerk
left
early.
We
facilitate
candid
reflection
on
what
type
of
clerk
would
fit
best
and
the
overall
value
of
the
experience.
Importantly,
clerks
rate
both
the
judge
as
a
manager
and
the
overall
clerkship
experience
(positive,
negative,
or
neutral),
and
we’ve
seen
discrepancies
between
these:
around
75%
of
clerks
describe
the
overall
experience
as
positive
(i.e.,
a
valuable
experience)
but
only
70%
rate
the
judge
as
a
good
manager
—
an
important
data
point,
should
the
judiciary
ever
train
judges
on
how
to
manage
employees.
Most
importantly,
LAP
is
the
only
source
of
candid
negative
information
about
judges
to
avoid.
We
don’t
hide
the
ball.
Any
student
with
access
to
both
their
school’s
database
and
LAP’s
should
compare
a
judge
reviewed
negatively
in
LAP’s
database
with
reviews
in
their
school’s
database:
they’ll
probably
either
find
no
information
in
their
school’s
or,
disturbingly,
misleading
positive
surveys
about
the
judge.
Historically,
law
students
applied
indiscriminately
to
100
or
more
federal
judges
nationwide.
Clerkship
“research”
was
conducted
through
their
school’s
internal
database,
if
one
existed
(where
surveys
are
almost
uniformly
positive)
or
by
Googling
to
discern
political
ideology.
Neither
tells
you
whether
this
judge
—
who
wields
incredible
power
over
your
career
—
is
someone
you’d
want
to
work
closely
with
in
stressful
circumstances
without
workplace
protections
for
a
year
or
two.
While
some
schools’
alumni
networks
facilitate
individual
clerk-to-student
conversations,
this
is
both
inefficient
and
challenging
to
navigate.
Due
to
a
combination
of
law
school
pressure
and
“bird
in
the
hand”
desperation,
applicants
accepted
clerkships
with
abusive
judges
anyway.
LAP’s
database
solves
these
problems,
enabling
applicants
to
efficiently
narrow
their
searches
and
avoid
clerkships
with
bad
bosses
and
abusive
ones.
We
succeeded
where
law
schools
failed,
compiling
and
disseminating
both
positive
and
negative
information
from
anonymous
clerks
we
verified
to
thousands
of
subscribers
nationwide.
This
year,
thanks
to
LAP’s
database,
several
thousand
students
will
avoid
hundreds
of
bad
bosses
—
a
huge
win
at
a
time
when
many
nonprofits
struggle
just
to
survive.
What
still
keeps
me
up
at
night?
First,
accessibility:
our
2,000
users
do
not
represent
all
clerkship
applicants.
If
LAP
hasn’t
hosted
an
event
at
your
law
school;
you
don’t
follow
me
on
social
media;
and
you
haven’t
read
Above
the
Law,
you
may
not
know
why
you
need
LAP’s
database.
Considering
the
pervasive
misconduct
I’ve
witnessed
throughout
the
federal
courts
—
and
judiciary
stonewalling
and
obfuscating,
rather
than
problem-solving
—
I
wouldn’t
advise
anyone
to
clerk
without
consulting
LAP’s
database.
Second,
some
applicants
accept
clerkships
even
after
learning
the
judge
mistreats
their
clerks
—
even
after
I
warn
them
personally.
“I
can
handle
it,”
or
“It
won’t
happen
to
me,”
they
say.
Or,
echoing
their
law
schools,
“Any
clerkship
is
better
than
no
clerkship
at
all.”
I’ve
spent
hundreds
of
hours
counseling
clerks
who
were
harassed,
fired,
retaliated
against,
or
blackballed
from
the
legal
industry.
They
tell
me,
universally,
if
they
knew
how
bad
it
would
be,
they
would
not
have
accepted
the
clerkship;
and
they
wish
LAP’s
database
existed
when
they
were
applying.
More
than
1,000
clerks
invested
time
sharing
their
experiences
—
around
20%
of
them
negative
—
in
writing,
some
sharing
for
the
first
time
and
shouldering
perceived
risk:
heed
clerks’
warnings.
Today’s
law
students
won’t
remember
a
time
when
clerkship
hiring
was
less
than
transparent:
when
the
only
information
they
might
access
about
judges
to
avoid
traveled
through
the
fear-infused
clerkship
“whisper
network.”
It’s
not
too
late
to
register
for
database
access
for
the
real
deal
on
clerking:
frankly,
you’d
have
to
be
a
masochist
to
apply
without
this
resource.
Deciding
where
to
clerk
is
one
of
the
most
important
career
decisions
you’ll
make.
Maybe
you’ll
find
a
lifelong
mentor.
Perhaps
your
clerkship
will
just
check
a
box.
But
what
few
were
willing
to
admit,
before
LAP,
is
that
clerking
can
also
be
a
career-
and
life-altering
negative
experience:
one
that
can
be
avoided.
At
a
time
when
news
out
of
Washington,
D.C.,
is
bleak,
and
many
ask
how
they
can
help
preserve
and
protect
our
democracy,
LAP
is
a
“right
now”
solution.
We’re
not
waiting
on
anyone
—
neither
Congress
nor
the
courts
—
to
make
the
change
we
know
is
necessary.
We’ve
proven
that
even
the
most
entrenched
and
intransigent
area
of
the
government
—
the
judiciary
—
can
be
reformed.
Where
there’s
a
will,
there’s
a
way.
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 [email protected] and
follow
her
on
Twitter
@AlizaShatzman.