Overview

Supreme Court justices have long relied on law clerks to help process the work of the Court. Yet few outside the Court are privy to the behind-the-scenes bonds that form between justices and their clerks. In Of Courtiers and Kings, Todd C. Peppers and Clare Cushman offer an intimate new look at the personal and professional relationships of law clerks with their justices. Going beyond the book’s widely acclaimed predecessor, In Chambers, the vignettes collected here range from reflections on how serving as clerks at the Supreme Court impacted the careers of justices including Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, William Rehnquist, John G. Roberts Jr., and John Paul Stevens to personal recollections written by members of families of which more than one served as Supreme Court clerks. While individual essays often focus on a single justice and his or her corps of clerks?including how that justice selected and utilized the clerks?taken as a whole the volume provides a macro-level view of the evolution of the role of the Supreme Court law clerk. Drawing on a rich repository of such anecdotes, insights, and experience, the volume relates in a clear and accessible style how the clerking function has changed over time and what it is like for law clerks to be witnesses to history. Offering a rare glimpse into a normally unseen world, Of Courtiers and Kings reveals the Court’s increasing reliance on law clerks and raises important questions about the selection, utilization, and influence of law clerks.

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9780813937267

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Reviews

Nobody knows more about Supreme Court clerkships than Todd Peppers. Nobody has a better bird's-eye view of the Supreme Court than Clare Cushman. Now these two have conspired to require parents to collaborate with their offspring on the meaning of their respective Supreme Court clerkship experiences. Humbling for parents; illuminating for readers. And all the essays in this book go to show why Supreme Court clerks play an important and intriguing role in the judicial process, whether in dads' or daughters' time, or doubtless for future generations.--J. Harvie Wilkinson III, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, author of Serving Justice: A Supreme Court Clerk's View

Praise for In Chambers: An excellent book... It's interesting for many different reasons, not the least of which as a reminder of how much of a bastion of elitism the Court has always been. ?Atlantic Monthly The best parts of the book are the behind-the-scenes descriptions of life at the court... [A]n impressive and comprehensive book. ?Associated Press

Author Information

Todd C. Peppers , Henry H. and Trudye H. Fowler Professor of Public Affairs at Roanoke College and a Visiting Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law, USA is the author of Courtiers of the Marble Palace: The Rise and Influence of the Supreme Court Law Clerk and the coeditor, with Artemus Ward, of In Chambers: Stories of Supreme Court Law Clerks and Their Justices (Virginia). Clare Cushman is Director of Publications at the Supreme Court Historical Society. She is the author of Courtwatchers: Eyewitness Accounts in Supreme Court History and the editor of Supreme Court Decisions and Women’s Rights and The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789-2012.

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