NYU Law's judicial clerkship program sends alumni to nation's most prominent courts

Jeremy Marwell ’06 called it “an honor and great privilege" to serve as a law clerk for former NYU School of Law adjunct professor and current U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Marwell, who has also clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, is just one of numerous NYU Law students who have gone on to prestigious judicial clerkships.

Due to the efforts of the Law School’s judicial clerkship program, more than 130 graduates work as clerks every year. In Fall 2010, 45 NYU Law alumni will clerk at the federal appellate level. Seven of them will, like Marwell, clerk for the District of Columbia Circuit, while 10 others will be on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Three out of 10 clerks at the Delaware Court of Chancery, the go-to court nationally for business disputes, will come from the NYU School of Law. Alumni also clerk every year at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The number of NYU Law alumni in clerkships has continued to increase steadily, despite an adverse economic environment and a large increase from last year in the number of federal judicial clerkship applications nationwide. Early this year the Law School created the Judicial Clerkship Office, directed by Michelle Cherande ’97, to further bolster its placement efforts. Cherande, herself a former clerk for Judge John M. Walker Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, said that she “was very pleased with the results of this clerkship season, particularly during such a competitive year” and that the Judicial Clerkship Office “hopes to build upon this success.” Cherande noted that “securing clerkships for our students and alumni is a big team effort” and that “NYU faculty make extraordinary efforts on behalf of our students.”

Posted on December 23, 2009