Inside the pipeline enshrining Trump’s conservative legacy on the federal bench

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Experience as a Supreme Court law clerk has long been a prized credential, now drawing signing bonuses up to $700,000 at law firms. But it has increasingly become a ticket to a judgeship of one’s own, ensuring that long after the current justices are gone, like-minded protégés will be shaping the law in America.

The coveted clerkships at the side of the country’s most powerful jurists have become incubators for the right wing. Former clerks are at the vanguard of conservative causes centered on presidential power, gun rights, abortion restrictions and diminished voting rights. They are bringing cases as advocates and, increasingly, deciding cases as judges.

President Donald Trump, more than any of his predecessors in the White House, has been attracted to the credential of a Supreme Court clerkship. During his first term, all three of his Supreme Court appointees were former clerks, as were 40% of his appellate judges. That number is up to 60% for his appellate appointees in his second term.

Even if a future president breaks Trump’s pattern, as Joe Biden did when he prioritized other experience and diversity, the Trump legacy will be set. Judges have lifetime tenure and usually outlast many presidential terms. With two more years left in office, Trump has already named 66 judges to the Supreme Court and US appeals courts, more than any other president this century.

Among the Trump appointees confirmed by the Senate for appellate courts this second term: Benjamin Flowers, who clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia; Whitney Hermandorfer, who clerked for Justices Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett; and Jennifer Mascott, who clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas.

Flowers, Hermandorfer and Mascott were among the former clerks who remained in sync with their conservative mentors after leaving chambers. Flowers served as Ohio state solicitor general, where he led GOP states’ challenge of a Biden administration policy that let federal family-planning funds go to healthcare providers that made abortion referrals. More recently in private practice, Flowers represented a law professor supporting Trump’s effort to limit birthright citizenship.

These clerk trajectories reflect a legal world growing even more insulated at the highest levels. Supreme Court justices hire from a small cross-section of lawyers who have previously served a discrete group of lower court judges. The conservative justices who control the bench are essentially replicating themselves.

“The justices are really good at concentrating their own power,” said Vanderbilt University law professor and political scientist Tracey George, who has studied clerk hiring patterns.

George attributes the rising value of a Supreme Court clerkship to many factors, including elitism across the legal profession and greater public awareness of the justices’ decisions on salient issues, such as abortion and gun control.

“It’s a power center that attracts people,” she told CNN, observing that ambitious law clerks now seek two or even three prior clerkships with prominent lower court judges to increase their chances of being hired at the Supreme Court. Some lower court judges recruit star students, she said, to try to raise their own status and foster the reputation as “feeder” judges.

George said the latest development of clerkships enhancing the chances of a federal judgeship reinforces an already narrow world.

“We grant judges incredible power, including life tenure, on the premise that they are not captured by particular political perspectives or outcome preferences, that they can be neutral,” she said. “The way they’ve evolved, they’re very outcome-focused.”

Among current “feeder” judges are US appellate judges appointed by Trump in his first term, such as Gregory Katsas (of the DC Circuit US Court of Appeals) and David Stras (of the 8th Circuit), both of whom earlier clerked for Thomas, and Andrew Oldham (on the 5th Circuit), who earlier clerked for Alito.

Kastas emphasized in an interview with CNN that he is looking for strong candidates who will fit in well at his chambers, irrespective of their next step on the clerk ladder. “They have to earn my respect when they’re here, and once they do, I will support and advocate for them,” he said.

For the 2026-27 Supreme Court session, six of Katsas’ former law clerks will be serving justices: two for Alito, two for Justice Neil Gorsuch, one for Chief Justice John Roberts, and one for Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The numbers back up the insularity at the top of America’s judiciary.

Adam Feldman, a Supreme Court analyst who founded the data-driven Legalytics site and has tracked clerks at all levels of the judiciary, said today’s justices are essentially selecting the next generation of judges, creating a “closed loop.”

Looking over the past 25 years for CNN, Feldman found that Trump far outpaced prior presidents in the appointment of Supreme Court clerks.

Forty-four percent of Trump’s appointments to the Supreme Court and US Courts of Appeals were clerks, compared with Biden turning to former clerks 11% of the time for the most prestigious appointments to the bench, President Barack Obama, 25%, and President George W. Bush, 15%.

Multiple studies show that Supreme Court justices on the right wing, who hold the majority, and the three justices remaining on the left wing, habitually turn to ideologically compatible lower court judges for like-minded law clerks.

The pattern was not always so rigid, said Stanford law professor Michael McConnell, a conservative scholar who was a law clerk in the 1980-81 term for liberal Justice William Brennan and later appointed to a US appellate court by President George W. Bush.

Reflecting the rising polarization in the country and on the court, Republican-appointed conservatives and Democratic-appointed liberals have been digging in deeper on their legal positions and hiring patterns.

McConnell told CNN that has had consequences for law students aspiring to clerkships, “It’s actually quite difficult for moderates. They don’t really have a home.”

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Analysis: What the missing center has meant for the Supreme Court

Each of the nine justices hires four clerks per session, a total of 36 slots, for the one-year posts. The enduring value of the position arises from the proximity to the men and women who decide the law of the land.

Clerks come to understand what influences justices and how they interplay with the nine as a whole. They play a strong role in the screening of hundreds of appeals that arrive at the court each week and decisions on which cases to hear.

The tradition of hiring a young lawyer to assist in research and the writing of opinions is commonly traced to Supreme Court Justice Horace Gray (1882-1902). Years later, Justices Louis Brandeis (1916-1939) and Felix Frankfurter (1939-1962) were known to seek elite law graduates who would, after their one-term session, capitalize on that experience in academia or work on progressive policy.

Today’s model is a byproduct of a transformed bench and the decades-old influence of the conservative Federalist Society, founded as a national campus group in 1982. The late Justice Scalia, then teaching at the University of Chicago, was one of its faculty advisers.

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When Trump announced his selection of Barrett to succeed Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020, he stressed that Barrett had “received one of the highest honors a young lawyer could have, serving as a clerk on the Supreme Court for Justice Antonin Scalia.”

Federalist Society leaders have helped screen judicial candidates for Republican presidents dating to the Reagan era. The group’s vast campus connections have also propelled right-wing law students into judicial clerkships.

“Many years ago, the Federalist Society set out to create a talent pipeline of young conservative law students and lawyers to transform the legal culture,” Leonard Leo, a former Federalist Society executive and now co-chairman of its board of trustees, said in an interview. “It’s clearly bearing fruit.”

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Leonard Leo, who helped Trump win extraordinary power, is now a ‘bad person’ in the president’s eyes

Such consequences trouble progressives.

“We’re not just seeing insularity,” Georgetown University law professor Michele Goodwin told CNN. “This replication is clone-like, where they went to school, where they grew up. And you don’t see academic diversity. It also shows a very cultivated, political point of view, a rigging of the Supreme Court, at a time when the court has become so deeply partisan. Someone could be reductive and say, ‘The left would do this too.’ But the left didn’t do this.”

During his first term, Trump openly relied on the Federalist Society, which espoused similar priorities of robust executive power, less regulatory authority, and an overall traditionalist agenda on religion and other cultural issues. Trump has since had a falling out with Leo.

Still the Federalist Society is so entrenched in conservatism, it cannot be avoided. Nearly every US appellate judge appointed in Trump’s second term acknowledged participating in Federalist Society activities.

Another manifestation of today’s transformed judiciary and clerk patterns is seen in the experience of lawyer Charles Cooper, a former Supreme Court clerk who became a top Justice Department official in the Reagan administration and then founded a boutique law firm pursuing right-wing causes.

“We’re quite openly, professedly, unashamedly, conservative,” Cooper, who has argued against affirmative action and race-based policies, gun control and same-sex marriage, said in an interview.

With the conservative dominance at the high court, Cooper’s firm has bolstered its ability to help its associates obtain clerkships. Six lawyers who had worked at Cooper & Kirk are at the Supreme Court for its current session, two in the chambers of Kavanaugh, and one each with Roberts, Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch.

Such a conservative loop simply did not exist when Cooper himself was seeking a clerkship in the late 1970s. Only one justice of the nine was then seen as an unyielding conservative, William Rehnquist, nicknamed “The Lone Ranger” in chambers. (Rehnquist voted against Roe v. Wade in 1973, repeatedly favored law enforcement over criminal defendants, and rejected civil rights legislation.)

Cooper worked for Rehnquist in the 1978-79 session; future Chief Justice Roberts clerked for Rehnquist two years later . President Ronald Reagan elevated Rehnquist to chief justice in 1986; Rehnquist was then succeeded by Roberts in 2005.

What John Roberts learned during his formative year as a Supreme Court clerk

In August, Trump tapped a recent alum of the Cooper & Kirk firm for a US district court post in Tennessee, at the first level of the three-tier judiciary.

Samuel Adkisson, a special assistant in the White House counsel’s office, assisted in the administration’s recent court cases, including Trump v. Slaughter , where the Supreme Court ruled that the president could fire the heads of independent agencies. That decision reversed a Supreme Court precedent from 1935 that insulated regulatory agencies from presidential interference. It also typified the kinds of cases on which the Roberts Court and Trump administration align.

In Trump’s Truth Social announcement on August 14 regarding Adkisson, the president referred to his two appellate court posts and Adkisson’s culminating clerkship four years ago with Roberts.

The president touted Adkisson’s work toward the “Historic Win in the Slaughter case.”

It happened that Roberts, at the helm of this ever more interconnected legal world, wrote that Trump v. Slaughter decision .

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担任最高法院法律助理的经历一直以来都是一项令人艳羡的资历，如今在律师事务所甚至能带来高达70万美元的签约奖金。但它也日益成为通往法官之路的敲门砖，确保在现任大法官卸任之后，志同道合的后辈仍将继续塑造美国的法律格局。

在国家最有权势的法官身边担任助理这一令人垂涎的职位，如今已成为右翼势力的温床。这些前助理们站在保守派事业的前沿，他们致力于维护总统权力、拥枪权、限制堕胎以及削弱投票权。他们以辩护律师的身份提起诉讼，并且越来越多地以法官的身份审理案件。

与历任总统相比，唐纳德·特朗普总统似乎更青睐最高法院书记员的资历。在他第一个任期内，他任命的三位最高法院大法官全部都是前书记员，他任命的上诉法院法官中也有40%是前书记员。在他第二个任期内，这一比例上升到了60%。

即便未来的总统打破特朗普的惯例，就像乔·拜登那样优先考虑其他经验和多元化的候选人，特朗普的政治遗产也已成定局。法官终身任职，通常任期比总统多届。特朗普还有两年任期，却已任命了66名法官进入最高法院和联邦上诉法院，比本世纪任何一位总统都多。

在特朗普第二任期内获得参议院确认的上诉法院法官人选中，有：曾担任已故大法官安东宁·斯卡利亚的助理的本杰明·弗劳尔斯；曾担任大法官塞缪尔·阿利托和艾米·科尼·巴雷特的助理的惠特尼·赫尔曼多弗；以及曾担任大法官克拉伦斯·托马斯的助理的詹妮弗·马斯科特。

弗劳尔斯、赫尔曼多弗和马斯科特等前任助理在离开律师事务所后仍与其保守派导师保持密切联系。弗劳尔斯曾担任俄亥俄州副检察长，领导共和党控制的各州挑战拜登政府的一项政策，该政策允许将联邦计划生育资金用于向提供堕胎转诊服务的医疗机构。最近，弗劳尔斯在私人执业期间，曾代表一位支持特朗普限制出生公民权的法学教授。

这些法官助理的职业发展轨迹反映出，法律界最高层日益封闭。最高法院大法官的选拔范围仅限于少数曾服务于特定下级法院法官群体的律师。掌控最高法院的保守派大法官们实际上是在自我复制。

“大法官们非常擅长集中自己的权力，”范德比尔特大学法学教授兼政治学家特雷西·乔治说道，她曾研究过书记员的招聘模式。

乔治认为最高法院书记员职位价值不断上升的原因有很多，包括法律界的精英主义以及公众对大法官们在堕胎和枪支管制等重要问题上的决定的日益关注。

她告诉CNN：“这是一个吸引人才的权力中心。”她指出，如今雄心勃勃的法律助理会争取在知名下级法院法官手下担任两到三位助理，以增加自己被最高法院录用的机会。她还说，一些下级法院法官会招募优秀学生，试图提升自身地位，并树立自己作为“输送人才”法官的声誉。

乔治表示，书记员制度的最新发展提高了成为联邦法官的机会，这进一步加剧了本已狭窄的司法体系。

“我们赋予法官巨大的权力，包括终身任期，前提是他们不受特定政治观点或结果偏好的影响，能够保持中立，”她说。“但就他们目前的演变方式来看，他们非常注重结果。”

目前“输送”法官包括特朗普在其第一任期内任命的美国上诉法院法官，例如格雷戈里·卡特萨斯（哥伦比亚特区巡回上诉法院）和戴维·斯特拉斯（第八巡回上诉法院），他们此前都曾担任托马斯的助理；以及安德鲁·奥尔德姆（第五巡回上诉法院），他此前曾担任阿利托的助理。

卡斯塔斯在接受CNN采访时强调，他正在寻找能力出众、能够很好地融入他办公室的候选人，无论他们下一步的职位如何。“他们必须在这里赢得我的尊重，一旦他们做到了，我就会支持他们，为他们争取权益。”他说。

在 2026-27 年最高法院任期内，卡特萨斯的六位前法律助理将担任大法官：两位为阿利托，两位为尼尔·戈萨奇大法官，一位为首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨，一位为布雷特·卡瓦诺大法官。

这些数字证实了美国司法高层的封闭性。

最高法院分析师亚当·费尔德曼 (Adam Feldman) 创立了数据驱动型网站 Legalytics，并追踪了各级司法部门的书记员。他表示，如今的法官们实际上是在挑选下一代法官，从而形成了一个“闭环”。

费尔德曼为 CNN 调查了过去 25 年的情况，发现特朗普在最高法院书记员的任命方面远远超过了前几任总统。

特朗普任命的最高法院和美国上诉法院法官中，有 44% 是书记员；相比之下，拜登任命前书记员担任最负盛名的法官的比例为 11%；奥巴马总统为 25%；小布什总统为 15%。

多项研究表明，占多数的右翼最高法院大法官和剩下的三名左翼大法官，习惯性地从意识形态相近的下级法院法官中挑选志同道合的法律助理。

斯坦福大学法学教授迈克尔·麦康奈尔（Michael McConnell）表示，这种模式并非一直如此僵化。麦康奈尔是一位保守派学者，曾在 1980-81 年担任自由派大法官威廉·布伦南的法律助理，后来被乔治·W·布什总统任命为美国上诉法院法官。

随着国家和法院内部两极分化加剧，共和党任命的保守派和民主党任命的自由派在法律立场和人事任命方面越来越趋于一致。

麦康奈尔告诉 CNN，这给渴望成为法官助理的法学院学生带来了后果，“温和派人士的处境实际上相当艰难。他们没有真正的归属感。”

J. Scott Applewhite/美联社

分析：最高法院中心缺失意味着什么

九位大法官每人每届任期聘用四名书记员，共计36个职位，任期一年。该职位之所以经久不衰，在于其能够近距离接触那些决定国家法律的法官们。

书记员们逐渐了解哪些因素会影响大法官，以及他们如何与九位大法官整体互动。他们在筛选每周提交到法院的数百起上诉案件以及决定审理哪些案件方面发挥着重要作用。

聘用年轻律师协助进行研究和撰写意见书的传统通常可追溯到最高法院大法官霍勒斯·格雷（1882-1902）。多年后，路易斯·布兰代斯大法官（1916-1939）和费利克斯·弗兰克福特大法官（1939-1962）也以聘用优秀法学院毕业生而闻名，这些毕业生在完成一个任期后，可以利用这段经历在学术界发展，或投身于进步政策领域。

今天的模式是法官队伍重组和保守派联邦党人协会数十年来影响的副产品。该协会于 1982 年成立，是一个全国性的校园团体。已故大法官斯卡利亚当时在芝加哥大学任教，是该协会的指导老师之一。

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2020 年，特朗普宣布选择巴雷特接替露丝·巴德·金斯伯格时，他强调巴雷特“获得了年轻律师所能获得的最高荣誉之一，曾担任最高法院大法官安东宁·斯卡利亚的助理”。

自里根时代以来，联邦党人协会的领导人就一直帮助共和党总统筛选司法候选人。该组织在校园内广泛的人脉关系也帮助许多右翼法学院学生获得了法官助理的职位。

“多年前，联邦党人协会就着手培养一批年轻的保守派法学生和律师，以改变法律界的文化，”联邦党人协会前执行委员、现任理事会联合主席伦纳德·利奥在一次采访中说。“显然，这项工作正在取得成效。”

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曾帮助特朗普赢得非凡权力的伦纳德·利奥，如今在总统眼中却成了“坏人”。

这些后果令进步人士感到担忧。

“我们看到的不仅仅是孤立主义，”乔治城大学法学教授米歇尔·古德温告诉CNN，“这种复制现象就像克隆一样，他们上的学校、成长的地方都一模一样。而且你看不到任何学术上的多样性。这也展现了一种精心炮制的政治观点，一种对最高法院的操纵，而如今最高法院的党派色彩已经如此浓厚。有人可能会简单地说，‘左派也会这么做。’但左派并没有这么做。”

在第一任期内，特朗普公开依赖联邦党人协会，该协会主张赋予行政部门强大的权力，限制监管权力，并在宗教和其他文化问题上奉行总体上的传统主义立场。此后，特朗普与利奥·特朗普决裂。

然而，联邦党人协会的保守主义根深蒂固，令人无法回避。几乎所有在特朗普第二任期内任命的美国上诉法院法官都承认参与过联邦党人协会的活动。

当今司法和书记员模式转变的另一个表现体现在律师查尔斯·库珀的经历中。库珀曾是最高法院的书记员，后来成为里根政府司法部的高级官员，之后又创办了一家精品律师事务所，致力于右翼事业。

“我们非常公开、坦率、毫不掩饰地持保守立场，”库珀在一次采访中说道。他曾反对平权行动和基于种族的政策、枪支管制和同性婚姻。

由于最高法院保守派占据主导地位，库珀所在的律师事务所加强了其帮助律师助理获得法官助理职位的能力。目前，有六名曾在库珀律师事务所工作的律师在最高法院任职，其中两名在卡瓦诺大法官的办公室，另外四名分别在罗伯茨、托马斯、阿利托和戈萨奇大法官的办公室。

这种保守主义的循环在库珀本人于20世纪70年代末寻求法官助理职位时根本不存在。当时九位大法官中只有一位被视为立场坚定的保守派，即威廉·伦奎斯特，他在法官办公室里被戏称为“独行侠”。（伦奎斯特在1973年投票反对“罗诉韦德案”，一再偏袒执法部门而非刑事被告，并拒绝民权立法。）

库珀在1978-79年期间为伦奎斯特工作；两年后，未来的首席大法官罗伯茨也曾担任伦奎斯特的助理。1986年，罗纳德·里根总统任命伦奎斯特为首席大法官；2005年，罗伯茨接替伦奎斯特的职位。

约翰·罗伯茨在担任最高法院书记员的早期经历中学到了什么

8 月，特朗普任命了一位库珀·柯克律师事务所的毕业生担任田纳西州美国地方法院的法官，这是三级司法体系中的第一级。

白宫法律顾问办公室特别助理塞缪尔·阿德金森协助处理了本届政府近期的几起诉讼案件，其中包括“特朗普诉斯劳特案”。在该案中，最高法院裁定总统有权解雇独立机构的负责人。这一裁决推翻了最高法院1935年的一项先例，该先例曾保护监管机构免受总统干预。这也体现了罗伯茨法院与特朗普政府在哪些类型的案件上立场一致。

在特朗普 8 月 14 日发表的 Truth Social 声明中，总统提到了阿德金森的两个上诉法院职位，以及阿德金森四年前在罗伯茨手下担任书记员的经历。

总统称赞阿德金森在“屠杀案中取得历史性胜利”方面所做的工作。

恰巧，身处这个日益紧密联系的法律世界的罗伯茨，撰写了特朗普诉斯劳特案的判决书。