This story includes descriptions of sexual abuse.
In 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic began its rampage, a recent law school graduate started a new job in Alaska.
She hoped the coveted post – as law clerk to a federal judge – would jump-start her career. Instead, it was almost derailed by harassment and abuse.
“The judge was the HR department, the judge was my boss, the judge was a colleague,” she said. “The judge was everything, he had all the power.”
The power imbalance between judges with lifetime tenure and the young law clerks who work alongside them is both vast and unique to the judiciary. People in the federal court system don’t have the same kind of job protections enshrined in law that most other Americans do.
The courts largely police themselves. That’s because judicial independence – and protecting the balance of power – give judges a tremendous amount of sway over their own workplace rules. At the same time, federal judges have emerged in recent weeks as the lone check on employment abuses elsewhere in the federal government.
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