Product Description
“This is a meticulous work of historical scholarship, tracing the evolution of the Supreme Court law clerk from its beginnings in the nineteenth century up to the present day. Refreshingly free of the gossip, politics, and rumors that have disfigured previous accounts of this important institution, the book manages to be not only scrupulous, but fascinating.”
—Richard Posner, Judge, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit “This unique histo… More >>
Courtiers of the Marble Palace: The Rise and Influence of the Supreme Court Law Clerk
Tags: clerk, Court, court of appeals, Courtiers, courtiers of the marble palace, Influence, marble, marble palace, meticulous work, nineteenth century, Palace, present day, richard posner, Rise, seventh circuit, Supreme, united states court, united states court of appeals
#1 by Robert P. Beveridge on April 6, 2010 - 11:34 pm
Todd C. Peppers, Courtiers of the Marble Palace: The Rise and Influence of the Supreme Court Law Clerk (Stanford, 2006)
When Todd Peppers and I were at school together, we had an English professor by the name of James Warren. Fantastic chap, he. I was put in mind of him while reading Todd’s
Courtiers of the Marble Palace. Warren described to one of my classes the “German method” of scholarship, which includes “at least a hundred footnotes per page.” This book doesn’t go to quite that level, but when you’ve got almost a thousand footnotes in two hundred twelve pages of text, I think it’s pretty safe to say you’ve covered your tracks well.
I’m not a lawyer. (Ironically, back in the day, I was planning on being a writer, and now here I am reviewing a book by someone who, as far as I know, had no designs on same.) I’ve never done much thinking about lawyers, in all honesty, so I was completely unaware that there was even a debate about whether the law clerks of Supreme Court justices were unduly influencing their opinions, much less that one had been raging for half a century. I’m not the target audience for Peppers’ book, but by the time I was through, he almost had me convinced I was. I grant you, I had to look up some legal terms while I was reading, but not nearly as many as I expected I would have to. Imagine that– a scholarly book about lawyers written almost completely in layman’s terms. The very idea should be enough to spark your interest.
The actual writing also takes me back to our school days, because it’s written very much in that sort of research-paper style we all developed somewhere along the lines during our school days: introduction, point, point, point, conclusion. It’s not something you see often in book-length nonfiction (and when you do, you usually find it better-hidden), but it doesn’t detract from the text, which I have to admit surprised me a great deal. There’s more than enough going on here to keep the reader turning the pages.
Peppers traces the history of the Supreme Court law clerk form the early days to the present, despite being hampered by confidentiality issues (there is as little information on the Rehnquist Court, in general, as there is on the earliest days of the law clerks). He spent a good long time digging for substantive material, interviewing former law clerks (and a couple of Supreme Court justices) both in person and in writing to figure out how the position has changed over the years and, of course, whether there really are hands in the hollow backs of Supreme Court justices. (The answer, for what it’s worth, seems to be “maybe once or twice in the past, but not on a regular basis.”) The distillation presented in this book is a lot more interesting than it sounds, shot through with quotes that give a glimpse not only into the duties of the clerks, but those of the justices as well.
I picked this up, I admit, because Todd and I were classmates. The last thing I expected was to be as interested in the material herein as I was. I’d recommend this one without a second thought to lawyers and laymen alike. *** ½
Rating: 4 / 5
#2 by Ronald H. Clark on April 7, 2010 - 12:13 am
This is one of two current books discussing the role of Supreme Court law clerks, the other being “Sorcerers’ Apprentices” by Ward and Weiden. This book takes a somewhat different approach from the Ward volume, in that it focuses historically on what clerks have done in their positions and how the role of the law clerk has been defined during different periods of the Court’s history. Unlike Ward, Professor Peppers does not seek to assess in detail how contemporary clerks function in the cert. pool (which is not even explained until page 191), how clerks serve as communication conduits and coalition builders between chambers, or how they draft bench memos. Rather, his concern is to see how the role itself has changed over time: i.e., when did clerks begin to draft cert. memos, when did they first begin to participate in drafting opinions (in my opinion, an undue amount of attention is paid in both volumes to this issue), how were they selected by the Justices and what criteria were employed? The author has done a heroic job of research, since he covers the entire period of Court history, supplemented by an important range of over 50 interviews with former clerks. His appendices are chock full of useful information. The two books together reinforce and strengthen each other, with the happy result that we have for the first time a really meaningful examination of the important role clerks play at the big court. An exceptionally well-done contribution.
Rating: 5 / 5