U.S. Supreme Court. Photo: Mike Scarcella / NLJ

Updated on July 14

More than 2,000 men and women have served as U.S. Supreme Court law clerks since Justice Horace Gray hired the first one in 1882.

They are "members of one of the most elite legal fraternities in the country," court scholar Todd Peppers wrote in a 2015 book on court clerks. But he added that there is "an ever more exclusive club" within that group: the handful of former law clerks whose children have gone on to clerk at the court.

Peppers devoted an entire chapter on the "family tradition," with anecdotes from clerk parents and their clerk children. When Martha Minow, future dean of Harvard Law School, started her clerkship for Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1980, a court librarian jokingly told her that her father Newton Minow, who clerked for Chief Justice Fred Vinson, needed to return some books he had kept since 1951.

The latest addition to the familial clerk club is Joshua Revesz, who is clerking for Justice Elena Kagan in the new term. His father, Richard Revesz, clerked for Marshall in 1984. (Kagan clerked for Marshall in the 1987 term.) Joshua's mother is Vicki Been, who clerked for Justice Harry Blackmun, also in the 1984 term.

Both parents are professors at New York University School of Law, though Been is on leave to serve as deputy New York City mayor for housing and economic development. Richard Revesz is a former dean of the law school and has participated in more than a dozen amicus briefs filed at the Supreme Court, most recently in Seila Law v. CFPB.

Kagan, a former dean of Harvard Law School, has spoken glowingly of Richard Revesz, who, the justice once said, "imbued [NYU law school] with his optimism, with his sense of adventure and innovation."

Joshua Revesz on June 26 alerted the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that he was withdrawing his appearance as counsel in the emoluments clause case In re Trump. The Yale Law School grad has been a lawyer in the civil division of the Justice Department since 2018. Before then he clerked for Judge Merrick Garland on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Earlier, he was a summer associate at Jenner & Block. The Revesz parents declined to talk about their son's new job.

It turns out that Joshua Revesz is not the only Supreme Court clerk who is the offspring of two high court clerk-parents, and the story also involves Kagan.

In 2015, Jonathan Meltzer clerked for Kagan, and is now an associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson. His father was Dan Meltzer, a clerk to Justice Potter Stewart in the 1976 term. And he married Ellen Semenoff, another Marshall clerk from the same term. She is currently an assistant city manager in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1967. LBJ Library photo by Frank Wolfe.

In the too-coincidental-to-imagine category, Dan Meltzer, who was a deputy White House counsel in the Obama administration, was appointed as director of the American Law Institute in 2013. Because of ill health, he declined the appointment and died in 2015. The person appointed to replace him in 2014 was none other than Richard Revesz, who still holds that position.

In 2007, we reported on other clerk-related family pairings (with only one parent who was a clerk): Jessica Phillips (daughter of Carter Phillips); Rebecca Tushnet (daughter of Mark Tushnet); Renée Lettow Lerner (daughter of Charles Lettow); Mary Mikva (daughter of Abner Mikva); Martha Minow (daughter of Newton Minow); and Gay Gellhorn (daughter of Walter Gellhorn).

When we reported on the Revesz family lineage and the other pairings in Supreme Court Brief on July 1, we asked readers to tell us if there were more. The answer was a resounding yes. We were told of nearly a dozen familial clerks. Our most prolific source (but not the only one) for this information was Roy Englert Jr., a partner at Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck, Untereiner & Sauber and longtime Supreme Court devotee and advocate.

Here are the clerk pairs we were able to confirm:

>> Clifford Sloan, now a retired partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, clerked for the late Justice John Paul Stevens in the 1985 term. Sloan's daughter Sarah Sloan, now a managing associate at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, clerked for Stevens in retirement in the 2018 term. Thanks to Stevens' long tenure, the Sloans may have been the first family pair to clerk for the same justice.

>> Porter Wilkinson, now chief of staff of the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. in 2008-09. Her father, J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, clerked for Justice Lewis Powell in the 1972 term.

Amanda Cohen Leiter, at left. Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi/ ALM

>> Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr senior counsel Louis Cohen clerked for Justice John Marshall Harlan II in the 1967 term, and his daughter Amanda Cohen Leiter, now professor at American University's Washington College of Law, clerked for Stevens in the 2003 term.

>> William Levi, chief of staff and senior counsel to the attorney general, clerked for Justice Samuel Alito Jr. in the 2011 term. His father, David Levi, professor and former dean at Duke University School of Law, clerked for Powell in 1981 and 1982.

>> Lauren Willard, now a counsel to U.S. Attorney General William Barr, clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy in the 2012 term. Her father, Richard Willard, clerked for Blackmun and served as an assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration.

>> Sarah Cleveland, a professor at Columbia Law School, clerked for Blackmun in the 1993 term. Her father Melford Cleveland clerked for Justice Hugo Black in 1952 and later worked at the Justice Department and became a prominent administrative law judge.

>> Robert O'Neil, the late president of the University of Virginia, clerked for Justice William Brennan Jr. O'Neil's son David O'Neil, now a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton, clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the 2001 term.

>> John Owens, now a Ninth Circuit judge and formerly a lawyer at Munger Tolles, clerked for Ginsburg. His father Jack Owens clerked for Powell in 1973 and practiced law in Washington and San Francisco.

U.S. Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, left, and Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, right, confer. Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM

>> Former Solicitor General Rex Lee clerked for Justice Byron White in 1963. His son Thomas Lee, now a Utah Supreme Court justice, clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas in 1994 and 1995. Rex Lee's other son, Mike Lee, a U.S. senator, clerked for Alito in 2006 and 2007.

>> Lance Liebman clerked for White in 1967 and later became dean at Columbia Law School. His son Benjamin Liebman, also a professor at Columbia Law, clerked for Justice David Souter in 1999.

>> Paul Wolfson, a partner at Wilmer, clerked for White in the 1989 term. His father Richard Wolfson clerked for Justice Wiley Rutledge in 1945 and 1946 and later went into private practice and co-wrote a treatise on the Supreme Court's jurisdiction.

>> James Brudney, a professor at Fordham University School of Law, clerked for Blackmun in the 1980 term. His father, the late Harvard Law School professor Victor Brudney, clerked for Rutledge in the 1942 and 1943 terms.

>> Michael Herz, a professor at Cardozo School of Law, clerked for Justice White in 1983 and 1984. His son Daniel Herz-Roiphe clerked for Justice Breyer in 2016 and 2017, and is now chief operating officer and counsel at VantAI, a biotechnology company.

>> The late Seventh Circuit judge Philip Tone clerked for Justice Rutledge in 1948 and 1948. His son Jeffrey Tone clerked for Justice Stevens in the 1980 term and is a partner at Katten & Temple.

>> The late George Freeman Jr., a partner at Hunton & Williams, clerked for Justice Black in the 1956 term. His son George Freeman III, CEO of the Universal Corporation, clerked for Justice Powell in the 1990 term.

>> Stephen Susman, founder and partner at Susman Godfrey, clerked for Justice Black in 1966 and 1967. Harry Susman, his son, is also a partner at Susman Godfrey and clerked for Justice Kennedy in the 1997 term. Stephen Susman died earlier this week.

>> Deborah Jones Merritt, professor at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in the 1981 term. Her father, the late William Kenneth Jones, a professor at Columbia Law School, clerked for Justice Tom Clark in the 1954 term.

Given the number of new entries we received through crowdsourcing, we'll assume there may still be more parent-offspring clerk pairings out there. Please let us know. Peppers in his book also reports that there is another smaller club of familial clerkships that we'd like to explore for another day: siblings who have clerked at the court.

 

Read more:

Tobi Young, First Native American SCOTUS Clerk, Recounts Year With Gorsuch

From Law Prof to SCOTUS Clerk: Gorsuch Is Hiring From Academia

$400K for SCOTUS Clerks: A Bonus Too Far?

Shut Out: SCOTUS Law Clerks Still Mostly White and Male

 

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This post was updated with additional names of a parent or parents who clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court and whose son or daughter also clerked.