Courts

Actually, Your Reputation Isn’t Everything

Risk-taking is necessary to implement widescale change.

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Pretty woman shouts into a megaphone, possibly protesting

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For anyone who has Googled me, there’s a lot to find. I quit my law firm job 20 months ago, soon after I provided congressional testimony in support of the Judiciary Accountability Act, legislation that would extend Title VII protections to the federal judiciary, in order to launch a transparency and accountability nonprofit. I imagine my existence would have been tenuous at the small D.C. family law firm where I was working, had I continued publicly advocating for judicial accountability and changes to the clerkship system. My outspokenness likely would have been constrained. Perhaps clients would have Googled me and wondered how I could represent them, considering my challenging relationship with the local courts. Not to mention, creating larger cultural change in the clerkship system, judiciary, and legal profession requires a nonprofit and its leader working full-time to create urgently needed changes.

I launched a nonprofit 18 months ago to correct injustices I experienced as a law student and law clerk. There was an enormous void in the public dialogue around judicial clerkships: they were messaged — incorrectly — as an unadulterated good. Too many law clerks suffer in silence. Information about judges who mistreated their clerks is not shared with clerkship applicants, perpetuating a cycle of abuse in the federal and state courts.

Some were initially skeptical. Would I gain any traction? Was the intent simply to criticize judges? Fortunately, my nonprofit and I proved the naysayers wrong. The incredible response from across the legal profession — and far beyond — is evidence there’s a real hunger for candid dialogue around judicial accountability, clerkships, and the courts. We’ve also been fortunate to receive support from many federal and state judges, who convey their support publicly, as well as to law schools, in support of LAP’s main initiative, our Centralized Clerkships Database, which democratizes information about judges as managers and clerkship experiences.

Every internship, job, and clerkship hiring cycle — including the hiring cycle happening right now — I see lots of bad takes about the hiring process. One of the most galling? “Your reputation is everything.” This statement, and companion statements like, “Don’t rock the boat,” “Don’t make waves,” and “Keep your head down, and do your work,” perpetuate the legal profession’s overly cautious, change-resistant status quo.

The problems I shine a spotlight on in the judicial clerkship system — enormous power disparities between principal and subordinate that perpetuate problematic behaviors; failure to train and supervise subordinates; secrecy; fear; unnecessary hierarchies and deification of the principal; and a persistent lack of transparency, diversity, equity, and accountability — are not unique to clerkships, although they’re particularly pronounced and problematic, considering the nature of the work environment. These problems trickle up through the profession, as today’s law clerks become tomorrow’s prosecutors and public defenders; Biglaw associates and partners, law school faculty members, clerkship advisors, deans, and judges themselves.

There’s a profession-wide unwillingness to step forward and publicly acknowledge the system only works for a handful invested in perpetuating the status quo. There’s a profession-wide unwillingness to embrace change and to question why we’ve conferred so much power on an unaccountable few. The system does not work for most law students — or law clerks. Embracing anything “risky” or disruptive is considered a threat to one’s “reputation.” New attorneys are taught to worry that a potential employer will Google them and discover they have advocated for change or urged the legal profession to do better, and will toss them aside. Recent student advocacy — and law firms’ responses — following the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Israel has not lessened these fears.

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As law students apply for summer internships and post-graduate positions and continue to hear the refrain — from attorneys and law school career services — that their “reputation” is everything, they should interrogate the subtext: don’t rock the boat. Conform to societal expectations of what a summer associate, law clerk, or junior attorney looks like, even if that means hiding your true personality or identity. Law clerks tell me they feel pressure to conceal their sexual orientation, change the way they dress, hide tattoos and piercings, conceal an accent, or self-censor. It’s also a subtle threat: do not question the status quo, or you will be punished professionally.

I spend a lot of time working with law students on campuses across the country, urging them to demand better from their law school career services offices, who currently gatekeep clerkship resources and maintain a chokehold on clerkship messaging and programming. Students spearhead student advocacy on a variety of issues. Where does that justice-minded spirit go after they graduate?

Some will pursue clerkships, where they’re told to prioritize the principal over themselves because judges deserve absolute respect and total deference. Then they’ll perhaps accept positions at law firms or in the government, where they are advised their actions reflect on their employer, especially if they want to advance, so don’t ruffle any feathers.

When attorneys dissuaded me from providing congressional testimony two years ago, from speaking publicly, and from launching a nonprofit explicitly centered around judicial accountability, they pointed out the “reputational risk.” I was told, “The right professional decision would be to stay silent.” And that speaking publicly would “tarnish my reputation.” What reputation? A reputation for being a coward? For simply accepting the status quo — that the former judge could unfairly trash me and destroy my career, that the legal community would line up behind him, and that I should just stay silent and “move on?” I’ve made strong statements in interviews, legal scholarship, and on social media about the lack of accountability for judges who mistreat their clerks, and the legal profession-wide failure to do anything about it. But these bold statements — once deemed an unjustifiable risk — have sparked a nation-wide clerkship transparency movement.

The legal profession is notoriously risk-averse. Lawyers are taught, beginning in law school and continuing throughout their legal careers, to prioritize risk-mitigation over high-risk, high-reward endeavors. Yet risk-taking is necessary to implement wide-scale change. I encounter this risk-aversion when I approach law schools to propose common-sense solutions to fix the clerkship system and they respond out of fear, desperately clinging to the broken status quo. I see it when I approach law firms to engage them in supporting improvements to the clerkship system and they too respond out of fear: fear of angering judges they appear before, even though there’s no evidence judges broadly oppose transparency or accountability in the clerkship system. Judges often tell me that transparency benefits them, too, by fostering better matching between judges and clerks.

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I critique systems that must change, while not criticizing anyone personally. And still, there is so much fear of this seemingly untouchable judiciary — power we as attorneys have conferred upon them — and a profession-wide unwillingness to question the status quo on behalf of thousands of clerks each year.

We can change the culture in the legal profession: from one of silence, fear, and deification of those in positions of power, to one of honest dialogue about the full range of workplace experiences. We are the next generation of leaders, advocates, and thinkers. Soon we will be leading the government offices, law firms, and law schools. Some will become judges or politicians. Let’s question — and disrupt — the status quo.

If more law students say “no” to a culture of conformity, and more new attorneys within their workplaces challenge this culture too, the legal profession will be forced to change and adapt in order to attract and retain the best talent. One of the most important things I’ve learned over the past 20 months, as I’ve developed a reputation as a “disruptive” change-maker, is that individuals raising their voices can change the culture. It’s time to stop simply accepting the status quo. The profession will only change if we demand change.

Aliza Shatzman is the President and Founder of The Legal Accountability Project, a nonprofit aimed at ensuring that law clerks have positive clerkship experiences, while extending support and resources to those who do not. She regularly writes and speaks about judicial accountability and clerkships. Reach out to her via email at Aliza.Shatzman@legalaccountabilityproject.org and follow her on Twitter @AlizaShatzman.

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