Hiring former Supreme Court Clerks (is expensive)

 The Washington Post has the story:

Clerks for hire: The Supreme Court recruiting race. Supreme Court clerks are offered bonuses of up to $500,000 to join law firms  By Tobi Raji

"Only around three dozen law clerks work for the justices during each one-year term, which means these lawyers — and their unparalleled knowledge of the court — are in incredibly high demand. Jones Day, the leader in the race to recruit and hire as many clerks as possible, announced last month that it snagged 8 law clerks, all of whom worked for conservative justices during the term that began in October 2022.

...

"The recruitment is so competitive that signing bonuses for Supreme Court law clerks have reached a new high — $500,000, according to a spokeswoman for law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Such a sum far exceeds the salaries paid to the justices — the clerks’ former bosses — who are paid slightly less than $300,000 a year.

"The bonuses — alongside annual starting salaries of more than $200,000, which alone are nearly triple Americans’ median household income — are the product of a decades-long competition among elite law firms seeking any advantage they can find in arguing high-profile cases before the Supreme Court. They view the clerks’ experience and knowledge of the court as profitable assets that attract clients in a highly specialized sector of the law, and they see clerkships as effective filtering devices in identifying promising hires, according to interviews with former Supreme Court clerks, lawyers and experts."