Clerks

Abstract

Recent political science scholarship has shed new light on the largely unexplored role of clerks at the United States Supreme Court. Two recent books (Sorcerers' Apprentices and Courtiers at the Marble Palace), written in the school of the new institutionalism, argue that the clerks' roles have both evolved with the Court's needs and influenced the Court's operations. This paper uses a review of those two books as a springboard for a broader discussion about the role of Supreme Court clerks and, more generally, the challenges of interdisciplinary study - how political science scholarship can influence understanding of a legal institution and, conversely, how legal scholarship can influence political science.

Keywords: Clerks, New Institutionalism, Political Science