As a child, Cameron Pritchett ’18 liked to talk and argue. But he never dreamed that those traits would lead him to the law and to the chambers of some of the nation’s highest and most influential courts.
Pritchett eventually went on to Harvard Law School and, after graduation, three federal court clerkships: at a district court, a circuit court of appeals, and, most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court. Each experience, he believes, made him a better writer, researcher, practitioner, and person. He credits his ties to Harvard professors and the law school’s Office of Career Services with helping him navigate the application process and secure the coveted roles.
“I’m just very thankful for all the mentors and great advice and guidance I received over the years,” says Pritchett, “and it started with my time at Harvard Law School.”
For many recent law school graduates, clerking for a judge or justice is central to their legal training, helping them hone their writing and research skills and offering exposure to a range of substantive areas of the law and procedural issues. The work can inspire young lawyers to consider careers on the bench or in public service. And the benefits go both ways. Jurists lean heavily on their legal assistants, relying on them for key research, often tasking them with crafting the first drafts of bench memos or opinions, and having them act as sounding boards.
In his chambers, Judge Amir Ali ’11 of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia relies on three full-time law clerks who work with him for one-year terms drafting judicial opinions and attending trials and hearings. He considers his clerks more than just “brilliant attorneys who produce great research and writing.”
“They are my counsel — people who advise me on the array of challenging and interesting issues that come up during the year,” Ali says. “I organize my chambers around the philosophy that even the very best work product gets better with teamwork and revision. And, by the way, that means I expect law clerks to revise my drafts and tell me when they think I’m wrong, too.”
The high-profile nature and location of Ali’s court mean he often hears cases involving the federal government. In his first days in office, he was tasked with assessing the legality of a range of presidential executive orders. It’s high-pressure work, he says, and requires clerks with the right kind of temperament who can hit the ground running.
“I look for people who can bring brilliance and care to an environment with lots of competing demands,” he explains. “That all goes best when it’s done as a team, and with some laughs along the way. My clerks take the work very seriously, without taking themselves too seriously.”
Ali also leans into the mentorship role, helping his clerks improve their decision-making, writing, and research skills while carving out time “to talk one-on-one about broader things. Often that includes how they’re going to build a fulfilling legal career,” he says, “and make the world a better place.”
Getting Students Ready
At the Office of Career Services, a designated team of advisers starts reaching out to 1Ls to familiarize them with the benefits of clerking and the application process. Students have access to a range of office-sponsored events, including panels with former clerks, discussions with judges, and information sessions on how to engage with faculty who can provide important recommendation letters.
Students also have hands-on advising tailored to fit their individual needs. Kirsten Solberg, director of judicial clerkships, and Elizabeth Blume and Alexandra McKinney, assistant directors of judicial clerkships, all clerked themselves and meet one-on-one with students and alumni interested in clerking to understand their goals and guide them through every step of the process.
The office also makes online resources available to students and alumni, including hiring updates, application timelines, and interview tips. About a third of each Harvard Law School class clerks. Since 2020, alumni have held more than 250 clerkships annually.
Though many students arrive at Harvard Law School knowing that they want to clerk, others may have had little exposure to the idea of working for a judge or justice. But whether the process involves introducing students to the system or encouraging them to think expansively about where to apply, Harvard advisers are ready to help.
“There are a lot of misperceptions about where you have to clerk or the value of clerkships,” says Assistant Dean for Career Services Margie Boone. “Students tend to gravitate toward a couple of judges, and they just don’t know the full spectrum of opportunities — and we want to change that.”
Clerkships provide graduates with skills prized by employers looking to hire the best and the brightest.
Staff members often encourage students to consider parts of the country they may not have envisioned before, explaining that clerking can be transferable enough to help them achieve their goals, whether that’s practicing corporate law in New York City, working in the public interest, or becoming a law professor. “We want to shine a light on all those opportunities that a student wouldn’t otherwise know about,” says Boone, adding that the office’s main goal is “to provide access to every student who wants to explore clerkships.”
One such student was Pritchett, who knew that a law degree could take him in many professional directions — toward mergers and acquisitions, securities work, a role as prosecutor or public defender, “and everything in between.” But he arrived at Harvard far less familiar with the value of clerking. “I certainly didn’t understand the concept of someone coming in and working for a judge full time,” Pritchett says, “and that being a prestigious position.”
He got up to speed thanks to Career Services resources and his law school connections. During office hours, his first-year torts professor, Richard Lazarus ’79, told him how a clerkship would improve his research and writing skills, provide him with important mentors, and give him the kind of experience prized by firms and U.S. attorneys’ offices looking to hire the best and the brightest. Lazarus also helped to identify judges who might be a good fit, including Judge Harry T. Edwards from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who hired the 24-year-old Pritchett right out of law school.
“Judge Edwards really took me under his wing,” says Pritchett, “helping me to refine my writing ability, helping me to become more confident discussing particularly thorny and complicated issues.” In addition, Edwards encouraged him to grade himself after every interaction, encounter, or writing assignment. “He taught me a lot of ways to be thoughtful and reflective about my performance and about how I can improve,” says Pritchett, who also clerked at the district level and is now an associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
For Pritchett, when it came to applying for a Supreme Court clerkship in 2020, Harvard again played a large role. The Office of Career Services, he says, “helped shepherd me through the process,” and law professors wrote key recommendations. One particular connection proved instrumental. As a student, Pritchett had taken a class with Brett Kavanaugh, then a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who became an important mentor and friend. Kavanaugh eventually rose to become an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
“When I applied to the Supreme Court, it was even more of an honor that he thought enough of my abilities to give me an interview and then ultimately an offer,” says Pritchett.
About a third of each Harvard Law School class clerks, either immediately after graduation or later.
Pritchett says he took many lessons from his time working with Kavanaugh, including about the importance of using clear, concise prose. “I have adopted that and really implemented that approach in the way I write as a lawyer. I want everyone to understand very clearly what points we’re trying to make on behalf of our clients.”
Kavanaugh also inspired Pritchett to consider public service. “I don’t know what exactly that looks like, whether it’s as a prosecutor, as a judge, or [a run] for office,” he says, “but I know that I definitely want to use the pedigree that I have been fortunate to obtain to help others.”
Miles Away
For many young lawyers, including Susan M. Carney ’87, now chief justice of the Alaska Supreme Court, a clerkship can open important doors.
Carney wasn’t sure where she was headed after graduating in the late ’80s until she saw a campus flyer promoting a clerkship thousands of miles away. “I had grown up with these amazing, breathtaking photographs of Alaska,” says Carney, whose father had spent time in the Army, stationed south of Fairbanks at Fort Greely. “So, it was in my consciousness, I’m sure, more than for other people in Worcester [Massachusetts].”
In Alaska, Carney clerked for Chief Justice Jay Rabinowitz ’52 of the Alaska Supreme Court, who later helped pave the way for her first job as a public defender. Carney would go on to become a lawyer with the state’s Public Defender Agency and then the Office of Public Advocacy, with the example set by Rabinowitz — a longtime friend, mentor, and inspiration — never far from her mind.
“Jay was just part of the community. He would stop to talk to people on the street, and they would talk to him,” says Carney, “and those are the things I still do today.”
Her long track record of service meant she was a top prospect when a position on the Alaska Supreme Court opened up. “For about a month, every time I turned around, someone asked, ‘Aren’t you applying?’ and I said ‘No,’” recalls Carney, until one fateful night in 2016 when she opened a fortune cookie with the message “A great honor will be bestowed upon you in the coming year.”
“So,” she says, “I applied.”
Now, when interviewing prospective clerks, Carney and her colleagues look for candidates who are sincere about wanting to relocate to a place “so far away and so different,” who have editing and journal experience, and who would be a good fit in a small group.
Carney, who calls her clerks “absolutely critical,” relies on them to write, edit, and above all master the facts of a case: “If I’m looking at a brief and this party is mentioning something that happened early in the case, and I know I read it somewhere, they have to be able to get back to me in an hour and tell me where to find it.”
A Lifelong Mentor and Friend
After working as a trial preparation assistant in the Rackets Bureau of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, Kate Ford ’19, now an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell, knew how important clerking would be for her legal career when she arrived at Harvard in 2016. But she had little idea of how to apply, turning to the law school’s experienced staff to help her navigate the process.
“I would have had no idea what a clerkship cover letter looked like or how/when/what I needed to apply to a clerkship,” says Ford, “without Harvard’s Office of Career Services.”
With that help, Ford secured a clerkship with Judge Rowan D. Wilson ’84 at the New York Court of Appeals in 2019. There she found the breadth of material — from cases about its jurisdiction in tribal disputes, to whether snowmobiles were permitted in protected areas of the Adirondacks, to juror misconduct in a murder trial — both overwhelming and exciting.
“The most valuable thing my clerkship on the New York Court of Appeals gave me was confidence that I can be asked a question that is completely new to me and trust myself and my research skills to get up to speed,” says Ford, who later clerked for Judge Michael Boudin ’64 of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in Boston.
While in New York, Ford also enjoyed working with clerks for other judges to build consensus on an opinion and discussing her views on a case with Wilson. If she and the judge disagreed about the best outcome, they would draft questions for oral argument, says Ford, “for the advocates to answer to resolve our standoff.”
Wilson remains a close friend. He talked Ford through buying her first apartment, she says, and delivered a Broadway-themed speech at her wedding based on their shared love of musicals, making a special day “even more special.”
Ford encourages anyone considering clerking to think carefully about the kind of person they are interested in working for instead of focusing on a particular location. She says she didn’t decide to clerk in New York; she decided to clerk for Wilson.
“To the extent an applicant can be location-flexible to find the right fit,” says Ford, “I really encourage it.”
But no matter where students end up clerking — whether it’s a trial court in an out-of-the-way location, an appeals court in a bustling metropolis, or our nation’s highest court — Harvard is ready to help guide them.
“Our team elevates every application and helps the student think really strategically about what they want to get out of the clerkships, where they will get the best experience, and where to apply,” Boone says. “It’s really a remarkable process.”