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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   1590 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 3, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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For those in the law world:

  1. Is there actually a major imbalance between liberal and conservative students in top law schools?
  2. If so, how much does this affect the relative competitiveness of clerkships for, say, Sotomayor vs Thomas?
  3. Is the prestige of a SCOTUS clerkship enough for ideologically liberal students to still desire to clerk for a conservative judge (or vice-versa)?
  4. Is there any stigma among elite law circles to having been associated to a judge that is disliked among them, or does the clout of SCOTUS overall override any possible stigma?

As I understand it the liberal justice clerkships are much, much more competitive than the conservative ones, so some ambitious students do swap sides for their own gain. But the overall pool or spaces is so low that even among the best ‘conservative’ (real or fake) HYS law students (or even just Yale ones, as I understand that’s the best) the odds are still slim.

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