Aliza Shatzman Aliza Shatzman

You Give Up A Lot To Work For The Federal Judiciary

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.

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Aliza Shatzman Aliza Shatzman

Congress To Federal Judges: You Are Not Above The Law

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.

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Aliza Shatzman Aliza Shatzman

Judges shouldn’t be above the laws they interpret

The federal judiciary's "self-policing" of workplace harassment has utterly failed, Congressman Hank Johnson and Aliza Shatzman argue in MSNBC. That's why the Judiciary Accountability Act, which will extend federal anti-discrimination protections to more than 30,000 judiciary employees, is urgently necessary.

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Aliza Shatzman Aliza Shatzman

Judicial Clerkships Are Not An Unadulterated Good

We should tell the truth about judicial clerkships: they are not an unadulterated good. Yet too many in the legal profession will continue to frame them as all unicorns ​​and fairy dust - covering up a darker side of clerking, perpetuating problematic judiciary behavior, and isolating mistreated clerks.

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Aliza Shatzman Aliza Shatzman

Judges Boycotting Law Schools? Actually, That’s Just Clerkship Hiring. 

This “boycott” of Columbia clerks is a public statement about what judges have been doing privately all along. Aliza Shatzman wrote about the federal judiciary's inequitable and opaque hiring practices. These 13 judges' "boycott" is nothing new: judges have been prioritizing and deprioritizing law schools and other applicant characteristics for as long as they've hired clerks.

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Aliza Shatzman Aliza Shatzman

New Clerkships Database Empowers Law Clerks To Review Their Bosses.

On April 8, 2024, judicial clerkship hiring and advising changed forever. The Legal Accountability Project launched our Centralized Clerkships Database, an unprecedented step to ensure transparency, accountability, and equity in judicial clerkships: one only a nimble third party could take. We are the only source of candid clerkship information for students — whether their law schools maintain robust clerkship resources or not.

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Aliza Shatzman Aliza Shatzman

Law Clerks Rarely Quit. Maybe More Should.

Law clerks don’t quit when things are going well.

Law clerks rarely quit. But maybe more should, considering the challenges many clerks face, Aliza Shatzman argues in Above the Law

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