Yale Law School - no stranger to clerkship controversies - has stooped to new lows in its quest to funnel as many students as possible into judicial clerkships, with little regard for the quality of the work environment, prohibiting student organizations from using their funds to subscribe to LAP’s Clerkships Database on behalf of members.

Just 9% of the 78 EDR matters initiated by federal court employees from 2021-23 were initiated by term law clerks, according to the AO's 2023 Workplace Report. That’s around 7 complaints over a 2-year period, or fewer than 5 misconduct complaints per year. This negligible number of complaints suggests limited use of the federal judiciary’s internal dispute resolution process and little progress toward fostering a culture of reporting.

Some judges apparently believe they should be exempt from criticism and public scrutiny — in addition to being exempt from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other anti-discrimination laws, and from oversight and accountability. In fact, we should criticize the judiciary: it’s how we hold the most powerful and least accountable institution, accountable for ethical lapses and misconduct.

The federal judiciary’s “alternative” to federal anti-discrimination protections, Employee Dispute Resolution, lacks standardization, meaningful remedies, uniform enforcement, transparency, and metrics for success. It is underutilized because it is ineffective, considering the judiciary has done nothing to ensure that clerks who file complaints are protected against retaliation by their powerful superiors.

Last week, Congress reintroduced the Judiciary Accountability Act, which will finally extend federal anti-discrimination protections to more than 30,000 federal judiciary employees, including law clerks and federal public defenders.