NALP Bulletin, June 2008
Each year, judges at all levels of government hire several thousand law graduates as judicial clerks. The table below provides a profile of these clerks with respect to gender and race over the past 15 years.
Even as the percentage of racial/ethnic minority graduates has increased over the last 15 years, minority representation among court clerks, while increasing, continues to lag behind minority representation among all graduates by about 5 percentage points. In recent years, somewhat more than one fifth of graduates have been minorities. Overall, the percentage of clerkships obtained by minority graduates has increased by 7 percentage points since 1992. More than half, about 53%, of judicial clerkships are obtained by women, compared with 47% in 1992.
Looking at specific court levels, the representation of minority women has generally doubled across all court levels, compared with only small increases for minority men. Women have been and continue to be in the majority among state and local clerks. While their representation has increased by 5 to 8 percentage points across all types of courts, at the federal level just under half of clerkships are taken by women.
Demographics of Judicial Clerks
| 1992 | 1997 | 2002 | 2007** | |
| All Clerks | ||||
| Men | 52.6% | 48.3% | 47.4% | 46.7% |
| Women | 47.4 | 51.7 | 52.6 | 53.3 |
| All Minorities | 10.8 | 14.1 | 16.0 | 17.7 |
| Minority Men | 4.9 | 5.5 | 5.7 | 6.6 |
| Minority Women | 5.9 | 8.7 | 10.3 | 11.1 |
| # of Clerks* | 2,994 | 3,241 | 3,326 | 3,354 |
| Federal Clerks | ||||
| Men | 57.9 | 54.5 | 52.9 | 53.1 |
| Women | 42.1 | 45.5 | 47.1 | 46.9 |
| All Minorities | 10.0 | 14.6 | 14.9 | 18.0 |
| Minority Men | 5.1 | 6.7 | 6.0 | 7.6 |
| Minority Women | 4.9 | 7.9 | 8.9 | 10.4 |
| # of Clerks* | 1,280 | 1,250 | 1,256 | 1,218 |
| State Clerks | ||||
| Men | 48.6 | 44.1 | 44.6 | 43.9 |
| Women | 51.4 | 55.9 | 55.4 | 56.1 |
| All Minorities | 11.3 | 13.4 | 16.9 | 17.6 |
| Minority Men | 4.6 | 4.5 | 6.0 | 6.1 |
| Minority Women | 6.7 | 8.9 | 10.9 | 11.5 |
| # of Clerks* | 1,472 | 1,699 | 1,733 | 1,751 |
| Local Clerks | ||||
| Men | 47.7 | 46.6 | 40.3 | 39.2 |
| Women | 52.3 | 53.4 | 59.7 | 60.8 |
| All Minorities | 9.6 | 16.6 | 14.8 | 16.2 |
| Minority Men | 4.6 | 5.8 | 2.3 | 5.4 |
| Minority Women | 5.1 | 10.8 | 12.5 | 10.8 |
| # of Clerks* | 218 | 277 | 305 | 334 |
* All figures exclude graduates for whom race or ethnicity was not reported.
** 2007 figures are preliminary, based on information processed as of May 1,
2008.
