Aliza Shatzman's Guest Essay, NALP Bulletin, November 2022

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NOVEMBER 2022 NALP BULLETIN
GUEST ESSAY
Continued on page 15
PROTECTING LAW CLERKS
FROM HARASSMENT IS
EVERYONE’S RESPONSIBILITY
By Aliza Shatzman
• min read
• Clerks are currently unable to
identify judges with a history of
misconduct.
• The Legal Accountability Project
seeks to remedy this problem.
• A new database helps students
evaluate judges when applying for
clerkships.
AT A GLANCE
7
Howwouldyouavoidjudgeswith
ahistoryofmisconductwhenyou
applyforclerkships?When I pose
this question to law students, they either say,
“I don’t know” or “I’d ask someone.” However,
as my experience illustrates, clerk-to-student
information sharing is inefficient at best;
ineffective at worst.
I decided to speak publicly about my expe-
rience with gender discrimination, harass-
ment, and retaliation during and after my
D.C. Superior Court clerkship for several
reasons. First, I provided written testimony
to support the Judiciary Accountability Act
of 2021 (H.R. 4827/S. 2553), legislation that
would finally extend Title VII protections to
federal judiciary employees, including law
clerks. Second, I aim to empower current and
former clerks to demand safer workplaces.
Third, I want to foster honest dialogue on law
school campuses and in the legal community
about the full range of clerkship experiences
— both positive and negative.
I founded the Legal Accountability Project
this summer with a law school classmate to
correct disparities that I personally endured.
The Legal Accountability Project’s mission is
to ensure that as many law clerks as possible
have positive clerkship experiences, while
extending support and resources to those
who do not. The Legal Accountability Project
is the resource I wish existed when I was a
law student applying for clerkships; a law
clerk facing mistreatment and unsure where

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NOVEMBER 2022 NALP BULLETIN
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Continued on page 16
to turn for help; and a former clerk engaging
in the formal judicial complaint process.
The Legal Accountability Project is working
on two major initiatives in collaboration
with law schools beginning in fall 2022 to
centralize information about judges and
collect data on judiciary workplace culture.
There is currently no easy, equitable way for
clerkship applicants to identify and avoid
judges who mistreat their clerks. Based on
my conversations with more than 50 law
school deans and clerkship directors, no law
school effectively protects their graduates
from workplace mistreatment. Here are a few
concrete solutions that will benefit every law
school, student, and clerk.
Clerkship Applicants Lack Crucial
Information
After a summer internship, students are
typically prompted to complete a post-intern-
ship survey about their experience to inform
others considering the position. Few law
schools conduct similarly styled post-clerk-
ship surveys of their alumni.
Even the schools that survey their alumni do
not capture many of the judges who mis-
treat their clerks, for several reasons. First,
mistreated former clerks are notoriously
unwilling to report back to their law schools,
due to ongoing fears of either reputational
harm in the legal community, or retaliation
by the judges who harassed them. Second,
some administrators dissuade students from
reporting on their negative experiences.
Third, law school surveys ask the wrong
questions and do not elicit information about
mistreatment — either unintentionally, or in-
tentionally. Troublingly, some administrators
collect information about mistreatment but
do not share it with students.
Students tell me that systems like Simplicity,
where these surveys are stored, are difficult
to search, and they are unable to efficiently
review surveys prior to applying for judicial
clerkships or externships. Importantly, there
is a ceiling on the number of judges each
school can track. It completely depends on
who their alumni clerk for. No law school has
a monopoly on information about judges.
Information-sharing would benefit everyone.
How Is Information Shared — or not —
Before Students Apply for Clerkships?
Administrators tell students to “do their
research” before applying. Students are
encouraged to reach out to current and
former clerks. Some schools provide alumni
contact information to students. Others
force students to track down former clerks
themselves. Students whose law schools do
not have robust alumni networks are at a
disadvantage.
Mistreated law clerk alumni may be unwill-
ing to share information with students who
reach out to them. Sometimes they remove
themselves from their school’s contact lists. In
other instances, this annual outreach retrau-
matizes them, forcing them to repeatedly
share their painful experiences.
Alumni who are willing to speak with stu-
dents might be contacted a dozen times per
year, consuming a substantial amount of
time. It would be easier and less time-con-
suming for both law clerk alumni and stu-
dents for the alumni to invest 20 minutes to
fill out one thorough post-clerkship survey.
This does not prevent them from serving as
a resource for students considering clerk-
ships. However, it would cut down on both
the number of students contacting them
each year and the number of informational
interviews students need to prepare for prior
to engaging in the time-consuming clerkship
application process.
The Legal Accountability Project’s
Initiatives
The Legal Accountability Project created a
Centralized Clerkships Reporting Database,
where law clerk alumni from every institution
can write reports about their clerkship ex-
periences, and law students at every partic-
ipating institution can read the reports. This
information can be used to help avoid judges
with a history of misconduct. The database
will democratize information about judges
There is currently no easy, equitable way for
clerkship applicants to identify and avoid judges
who mistreat their clerks.

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Continued from page 15
and enable students to access as much infor-
mation as possible before making important
decisions about their careers.
The database will bolster every school’s
clerkship program and increase diversity in
both the applicant pool and in chambers.
Historically marginalized groups — women,
nonwhite students, and LGBTQ students —
decide not to clerk, or apply less broadly,
because they lack information about judges.
I receive frequent questions inquiring about
which are the “friendly” judges to submit
applications. These students would become
clerks if they could access this information
before applying.
Our centralized database removes the ceil-
ing on the number of judges each school
can keep track of individually. Several other
features make it a better resource than
existing law school resources. First, we ask
the right questions. Our questionnaire elicits
lots of information students want to know
before clerking — information that is current-
ly unavailable to most applicants. Second,
our database employs an aggregate ratings
system. This will be one of the first pieces of
information applicants view about judges
in the database, enabling them to efficiently
narrow their searches. Students should read
as many reports as possible before applying
and assess the totality of the reports.
The Legal Accountability Project is also con-
ducting a Workplace Culture Assessment
of the federal and state judiciaries, through
which we will seek to finally answer the
question, “How pervasive is harassment in
the judiciary?” This assessment will be sent
to law clerk alumni who worked over the
past 10-20 years. Quantifying the scope of
judicial misconduct through data collection
and analysis is the first step toward crafting
effective solutions to protect law clerks from
workplace mistreatment.
Additionally, we will visit approximately
20 law schools during fall 2022. I will share
my story, discuss the scope of the problem,
and offer solutions, including our resources,
which we hope will transform the clerkship
landscape for the next generation of at-
torneys. As my story illustrates, a negative
clerkship experience — entered into without
important information — can alter the course
of an attorney’s life. I will also meet with
deans and administrators and demonstrate
how the database works. I encourage them
to attend our events and witness the ground-
swell of student support.
The Response So Far
The response from law students, many law
schools, and the judiciary has been enor-
mously positive. Students understand that
these issues are urgent and unaddressed,
and they are excited to invite us to their
campuses. For some of our most reluctant
administrations, student leaders have of-
fered to join us in meetings with their ad-
ministrations, to urge them to participate. It
is students and alumni demanding change
who will power this movement.
Many judges also support the centralized
database. They understand that positive
reviews will bolster their reputations and im-
prove their applicant pools. Judges are asking
me when their clerks can begin reporting into
the database.
Change Is Coming
My conversations with law school officials,
students, and judges have informed my
work. Some law schools’ clerkship pro-
grams are more robust than others, but
AlizaShatzman
(aliza.shatzman@
legalaccountability
project.org)isthe
PresidentandCo-
FounderofTheLegal
AccountabilityProject,
anonprofitaimed
atensuringthatlaw
clerkshavepositiveclerkshipexperiences,while
extendingsupportandresourcestothosewhodo
not.AlizaearnedherBAfromWilliamsCollegeand
herJDfromWashingtonUniversitySchoolofLaw.
Alizaregularlywritesandspeaksaboutjudicial
accountability.Shehasbeenpublishedinnumerous
forums,includingtheYaleLaw&PolicyReview,
UCLAJournalofGender&Law,NYUJournalof
Legislation&PublicPolicy,Law360,AbovetheLaw,
Slate,Ms.Magazine,andBalls&Strikes.
that does not mean that some clerkship
applicants should be protected from unsafe
work environments, while others are not.
Information-sharing protects everyone. The
Legal Accountability Project is visiting many
law schools this year, and change will not be
far behind us.
Note:Theopinionsexpressedinthisessay
arethoseoftheauthor.Theydonotpurport
toreflecttheopinionsorviewsofNALPor
itsmembers.
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