Judge Nazarian to Judges: Take the Accountability Pledge

The California Appellate Law Podcast

There are 30,000 law clerks in the U.S., and we have no good way to know to judge their experiences. So Judge Douglas Nazarian of the Appellate Court of Maryland—and board member of the Legal Accountability Project—asks judges everywhere to take the LAP Pledge. The Project hosts a growing database of survey responses from judicial clerks, but it needs judges to pledge that they will invite their clerks to fill out the surveys.

Uncomfortable taking the pledge publicly? No problem: please invite your clerks to do the survey anyway.

Why should you support the Legal Accountability Project? Judge Nazarian explains:

• The laudable work of gathering data to facilitate quality clerkships is nothing new. Law schools do it. But that means the data is fragmented and incomplete. The LAP centralizes it.
• The data is credible. Only confirmed clerks can submit surveys.
• The data is confidential. Only clerkship applicants can access it.
• Still, many clerks may feel insecure about submitting a survey without their judges’ endorsement.

If you are a judge, please sign the pledge, and encourage your feeder law schools to support the Legal Accountability Project’s work.

If you are a clerk or a former, submit a survey.

If you are an attorney, tell your alma mater that, next time you sign a check, you’d like to know if they support the Legal Accountability Project.

Judge Douglas R. M. Nazarian’s biography, LinkedIn profile, and Twitter feed.

Appellate Specialist Jeff Lewis' biography, LinkedIn profile, and Twitter feed.

Appellate Specialist Tim Kowal's biography, LinkedIn profile, Twitter feed, and YouTube page.

Sign up for Not To Be Published, Tim Kowal’s weekly legal update, or view his blog of recent cases.

The California Appellate Law Podcast thanks Casetext for sponsoring the podcast. Listeners receive a discount on Casetext Basic Research at casetext.com/CALP. The co-hosts, Jeff and Tim, were also invited to try Casetext’s newest technology, CoCounsel, the world’s first AI legal assistant. You can discover CoCounsel for yourself with a demo and free trial at casetext.com/CoCounsel.

Other items discussed in the episode:

• Legal Accountability Project
• Legal Accountability Project — Post-Clerkship Survey
• Ep. 39 and ep. 98 w/ Aliza Shatzman
• Videos from this episode will be posted at Tim Kowal’s YouTube channel.