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Inside the Courts: The Judicial Fellows Program

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2022

Mark W. Cannon  and
Jeffrey B. Morris
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Extract

It is three minutes of ten on a Monday morning. A long buzzer sounds. Quickly sweeping papers and books aside, climbing the 40 steps in a score of bounds, crossing the wooden barrier to enter by a side door, one slips into a chair in the extreme back and side of the courtroom, at the foot of one of the great columns of Italian marble, in time to hear Al Wong, the Marshal, intone “Oyez, oyez….”

The formal announcement of the Judicial Fellows program which appears annually in PS and other professional journals, and the posters which are seen outside placement offices, convey little of the essence of the experience. Since the Judicial Fellows Program is not only the younger sibling of the Congressional and the White House Fellows, but much, much smaller—with only two or three Fellows selected annually—relatively little is known about it.

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , Winter 1979 , pp. 6 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1979

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Footnotes

*

Administrative Assistant to the Chief Justice; Executive Director, Judicial Fellows Commission.

**

Research Associate to the Administrative Assistant to the Chief Justice (Judicial Fellow, 1976–77).

References

1 Fellows Gee, Jackson, Baier, Baynes, Morris, Good, and Chirlin are all members of the Supreme Court Bar and thus entitled to better seating if they arrive a bit earlier.

2 Literary considerations aside, accuracy dictates the admission that one normally slips into the chair about ten minutes after the Marshal's “Oyez” so as to miss the admissions to the Supreme Court Bar.

3 There has been one woman Judicial Fellow, Judith Chirlin, who served during 1977–78.

4 The major nonadjudicative duties of the Chief Justice include chairmanship of the Judicial Conference of the United States which has responsibility for rule-making and broad administrative policy for the federal courts; chairmanship of the Board of the Federal Judicial Center, which undertakes research, development and training for the judiciary; and general oversight of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Among the other diverse duties of the Chief Justice, imposed by Congress, are his service both as Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution and Chairman of the Board of the National Gallery of Art.

5 There is provision for short-term service as a Judicial Fellow, but it would be an exceptional circumstance. Gordon Gee served a stint of several months.

6 In the future it may prove to be possible to place a Fellow at the Administrative Office of the United States Courts as well.

7 “The Judicial Fellows Program, 1979–80.”

8 Mark W. Cannon, Administrative Assistant to the Chief Justice, Suite 4, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543.

9 Except for James A. Robbins.

10 There is no longer a formal age limit.

11 Or for those who think in terms of court organization, 7 of the 11 circuits have been represented so farl There is no deliberate attempt to achieve geographical representativeness.

12 Of the 1977–78 Fellows: Judy Chirlin returned to the practice of law and part-time teaching of judicial administration in Los Angeles. Ed Good returned to the University of Virginia Law School, but as Associate Director of a new Master of Law Program for state and federal judges.

13 See, e.g., Wheeler, and Whitcomb, , Perspectives in Judicial Administration (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976)Google Scholar, the first undergraduate textbook/reader in the field of judicial administration; Gee, and Jackson, 's monographs on legal education, e.g., Following the Leader: The Unexamined Consensus in Law School Curricula (New York: Council on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility, 1975).Google Scholar See also the articles by Baynes and by Morris in the 1978 Supreme Court Historical Society Yearbook.

14 Working mainly on weekends and evenings, Morris wrote one scholarly article, chaired a panel at the APSA Convention, and participated as a commentator at several other conferences. He moved forward slowly on longer-term scholarly interests.

15 The case was, of course, Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908).

16 See Insert p. 22.

17 In the area of administration of justice not case decision.