Read on Twitter
Yesterday was my last day serving as a federal appellate law clerk. I’m incredibly grateful for the rare opportunity to get this “behind the scenes” view, and I learned a great deal both about the court system and myself. 1/4
My overall takeaway is that (1) the caseload of active appellate judges was much higher than I expected; (2) the cases were (on average) much more difficult and complex than I expected; and (3) the attorneys were (again, only on average) much less helpful than I expected. 2/4
Those three factors combined to make simply “getting the law right” (e.g. not contradicting a prior precedent) a much more arduous--and much less guaranteed--process than I was expecting. I came out with a greater respect for the Herculean task of judging. 3/4
But I also have a newfound healthy skepticism that just because a legal proposition or a certain characterization of prior precedent finds its way into an appellate decision, that doesn’t mean I can take it as an article of faith that it’s right. 4/4
