You Read It First At New Majority

The current issue of New York magazine features a profile of New York’s junior Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. The article notes that after law school and a year of practice at a New York firm:

[S]he received a prestigious clerkship with Court of Appeals judge Roger Miner, a Republican appointee. Because the position was so coveted, and Gillibrand had not finished in the top 10 percent of her law class, it was assumed that she received the position based on her father’s Amato connections.

Surprising news? Not to NewMajority readers. This story was first reported by NewMajority’s own Tim Mak on January 28:

[Gillibrand] acquired an extremely prestigious clerkship with Judge Roger Miner at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals... Clerkships in a court of appeals are notoriously difficult to attain, especially without prior work experience in lower courts. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals counts within its jurisdiction New York, Connecticut and Vermont, and is counted among the most competitive of clerkships. Second Circuit clerkships typically go to students of top-fourteen law schools that have graduated at the top of their class, are members of their law review, and have clerked at a district level first.

While there is no way to investigate what Gillibrand’s law school grades were, there is evidence that she was not a top student at UCLA. This is because UCLA law students who graduate from the top 10% of their class are inducted into the Order of the Coif, an elite legal society. A recently obtained list containing Order of the Coif members from Gillibrand’s graduating year doesn’t include the name Tina Rutnik, or any other variation of that name. It is unlikely that Senator Gillibrand declined to join the Order. Lolly Gasaway, Secretary-Treasurer of the National Order of the Coif, writes in an email to NewMajority that she “has never heard of anyone turning it down”.

Further, Gillibrand’s biography does not indicate that she graduated from UCLA with any sort of academic honors, nor does it suggest that she was a member of the UCLA Law Review. How do you get a clerkship without high grades? Politics can play a part.

You read it here first at FrumForum.com.