Good Stewards: Law Clerk Influence in State High Courts

Abstract

Court observers disagree over the influence judicial law clerks exert on the judicial decision making process. To address this question, eighty-one justices on thirty-five state high courts in the United States were surveyed for their perceptions of the role of their law clerks. The data reveal that these clerks are highly useful in providing legal and factual information about cases, often make recommendations and help write judicial opinions, and sometimes collaborate with judges in reaching judicial outcomes. Thus, law clerks exert moderate influence overall on the judicial decision-making process in state high courts. These conclusions are consistent both with the predictions of principal-agent organizational theory as well as with the findings of studies of clerk influence on the United States Supreme Court.