Visiting professor Todd Peppers has completed a number of new scholarly works this summer addressing the role of Supreme Court law clerks.
Professor Peppers authored two essays entitled “Form Your Battalions and Fight: The Story of Justice Holmes, His Law Clerks, and Saucy French Novels” and“The Care and Feeding of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.” will be published in Supreme Court Historical Society Quarterly. These writings draw on the personal papers of Justice Holmes, and examine different aspects of the professional and personal relationships that Justice Holmes had with his law clerks.
“Surgeons or Scribes? The Role of United States Court of Appeals Law Clerks in “Appellate Triage”, co-authored with Bridget Tainer-Parkins, will be published later this year by the Marquette Law Review as part of a symposium issue on law clerks. The essay examines how Court of Appeals judges select and utilize their law clerks, and it is based on original survey data of Court of Appeals judges.
The co-authored article “The Mysterious Decline of En Banc Review in the U.S. Courts Of Appeals” will appear in the Justice System Journal. Using original data, the paper tests hypotheses as to why circuit courts decide to grant en banc review.
Lastly, Professor Peppers is co-editor of a forthcoming book published by the University of VirginiaPress. The book is a collection of essays written by former law clerks, judicial biographers and social scientists. The essays explore the hiring and employment of Supreme Court law clerks, as well as the personal bonds which form between law clerks and their justices. The introduction of the book is written by former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
