Nearly 700 law clerks, organized over the past few days by four women who had never met, are calling on top judicial officials to change how they handle sexual harassment in the workplace.

The group, which includes 480 former clerks, 83 current clerks and 120 law professors, sent a letter Wednesday urging significant reforms, such as instituting a nationwide reporting system and creating a working group to study the issue. The letter's organizers, all former clerks, said that while the judiciary has been receptive to their suggestions, even implementing some of them this week, what's really needed is a cultural shift in how the legal community views the relationship between a judge and law clerk.

“This is a make-or-break job, especially for people choosing to go for the best-of-the-best legal jobs,” explained Claire Madill, a public defender in Florida and one of the letter organizers. “It creates this culture where the law clerk feels like they can't do anything to ruffle feathers. Even with the processes and procedures in place [for reporting complaints], we still think the power dynamics are a problem, so we just need to change the culture.”

Madill joined three other former clerks, who each work in private practice, in organizing the effort. They include Kendall Turner, a law clerk at Jenner & Block, Sara McDermott, an associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson, and Jaime Santos, an associate at Goodwin Procter. The women had never met, but joined forces to spread the letter to others after current law clerks reached out to them individually for help.