Newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh made history by hiring a team of law clerks composed entirely of women.
Kavanaugh, who was confirmed in a close vote on Oct. 6, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 27, that he had already hired four women for his team of law clerks, as he needed to have a team in place if he was confirmed.
“If confirmed, I’ll be the first justice in the history of the Supreme Court to have a group of all-women law clerks,” he said.
“That is who I am. That is who I was,” he said, noting that the majority of the 48 law clerks he has hired in the last 12 years have been women.
“In a letter to this committee, my women law clerks said I was one of the strongest advocates in the federal judiciary for women lawyers. And they wrote that the legal profession is fairer and more equal because of me,” he added.
“In my time on the bench, no federal judge—not a single one in the country—has sent more women law clerks to clerk on the Supreme Court than I have.”
A 2017 study published in the National Law Journal found that approximately two-thirds of Supreme Court law clerks between 2005 and 2017 were male.
All-Female Team
The four women have been identified as Shannon Grammel, Kim Jackson, Megan Lacy, and Sara Nommensen.
Nommensen, a 2016 Harvard Law School graduate, was a student of Kavanaugh’s while at Harvard and has been serving as an attorney-adviser in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel since September, according to her LinkedIn page.
Previously, she was a law clerk in the U.S. District Courts. Above the Law reported that she clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Nommensen was one the former students who signed a letter in support of Kavanaugh during the battle over his confirmation.
Lacy, a 2010 University of Virginia School of Law graduate, recently served as counsel for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the head of the Judiciary Committee.
Just before joining Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court law clerk, Lacy was working with White House Counsel Don McGahn on Kavanaugh’s confirmation, according to the Journal.
Jackson, a 2017 Yale Law School graduate, who becomes one of just three black law clerks on the court this term, clerked for Kavanaugh this past year as he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a position he held since 2006.
Apart from clerking for Kavanaugh, Jackson has clerked for U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich on Washington’s federal trial court, according to Above the Law.
Jackson was also one of the former students of Kavanaugh who signed a letter of support for him.
Grammel, a 2017 Stanford Law School Graduate, clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, according to the Journal.
She was president of the Stanford Law Review while at Stanford and had recently been working at the Department of Justice’s Civil Appellate division just before joining Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court team.
