LAP’s President and Founder Aliza Shatzman spoke with NPR about ineffective federal judiciary workplace policies and dispute resolution mechanisms, and what needs to change to ensure both safe work environments for law clerks and accountability for judges who mistreat them.

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.

“You give up a lot” to work for the federal judiciary. But you shouldn’t have to give up your civil rights, Aliza Shatzman writes in Balls and Strikes.

Aliza Shatzman spoke with Reuters for our first press hit since the official launch of LAP’s first-of-its-kind Centralized Clerkships Database, an unprecedented step to ensure transparency, accountability, and equity in judicial clerkships.

Aliza Shatzman spoke with Business Insider about the launch of LAP’s first-of-its-kind Centralized Clerkships Database, an unprecedented step to ensure transparency, accountability, and equity in judicial clerkships.

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

“We are the positive movement” in the judiciary since #MeToo, LAP’s President and Founder told The Washington Post.

Aliza and LAP board member Judge Douglas Nazarian spoke with The Washington Post about LAP’s upcoming Clerkships Database launch.

LAP’s President and Founder Aliza Shatzman spoke with Bloomberg Law about our upcoming Clerkships Database launch. This is the best chance in a generation to truly ensure transparency, equity, and accountability in judicial clerkships and the judiciary.

The Legal Accountability Project’s new initiative, the LAP Pledge, signals judiciary support for the transparency and diversity principles that motivate LAP’s Clerkships Database and answers the question, “What do judges think of LAP’s Database?”

LAP’s President and Founder Aliza Shatzman and LAP board member Judge Douglas Nazarian spoke with Law360’s Courtney Buble about the LAP Pledge and the upcoming launch of LAP’s Clerkships Database.

LAP’s President and Founder Aliza Shatzman and LAP board member Judge Douglas Nazarian spoke with Bloomberg Law about the LAP Pledge, our new initiative to signal judiciary support for LAP’s Clerkships Database.

LAP’s President and Founder Aliza Shatzman offers advice for law clerks - from someone who’s actually been there.

In the Columbia Law Review, LAP’s President and Founder Aliza Shatzman discusses the clerkships “whisper network”: the secretive, fear-infused method of information-sharing. Information about judges who mistreat their clerks is often not shared by those who possess it, including law school professors, deans, clerkship directors, and former clerks, with those who need it—students. Aliza then proposes a solution to correct this lack of transparency: LAP’s Centralized Clerkships Database, which democratizes information about judges.

Law clerks and federal public defenders have no legal recourse when they are mistreated by the most powerful members of the judiciary. One former public defender is suing to change that for more than 31,000 federal judiciary employees.

LAP’s President and Founder Aliza Shatzman discusses Strickland v. U.S., the case involving a former public defender suing judiciary officials right now. Strickland raises constitutional claims because the judiciary is exempt from Title VII of the CRA. She also argues that the Employee Dispute Resolution (EDR) Plan lacks due process.

This article discusses some of the many procedural inequities and injustices in the EDR Plan and suggests urgent changes. The federal judiciary could revise the EDR Plan to make it more complainant-friendly right now.

Strickland's case could finally force a #MeToo reckoning in the federal judiciary.

LAP’s President and Founder Aliza Shatzman argues that framing clerkship hiring as a question of “fit” excludes large swaths of the applicant pool. It’s time to expand our idea of what a law clerk “should” look like.

LAP’s President and Founder Aliza Shatzman critique’s the legal profession’s tendency toward risk-aversion and argues that it’s necessary to embrace disruptive change in order to implement wide-scale reforms.

Law students - regardless of their law school's ranking and financial resources - overwhelmingly lack transparent information about judicial clerkships.

As LAP’s President and Founder Aliza Shatzman explains in Above the Law, the clerkships whisper network is the backdoor, secretive, fear-infused method of partial information sharing, whereby clerks "whisper" about mistreatment because they are fearful. Law schools perpetuate this problematic whisper network through their incomplete information-sharing and overly positive, rather than realistic, clerkship messaging.

It’s time for everyone in the legal profession to acknowledge some uncomfortable truths, recognize their roles in perpetuating problematic behaviors, and commit to achieving solutions.

Aliza argues that the situation involving 96-year-old Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman, who was recently suspended for one year following her refusal to participate meaningfully into a disability inquiry, illustrates the need for robust reforms. These include mandatory retirement ages or term limits; annual medical evaluations for all judges; and revisions to the Judicial Conduct & Disability Act and rules for Judicial Disability and Judicial Conduct Proceedings.

Aliza explains law clerks' limited options to address wrongful conduct in the federal judiciary - Employee Dispute Resolution (EDR) and the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act, as well as a third option that too many clerks are encouraged to choose - stay silent after experiencing mistreatment and hope the judge who mistreated you does not also attempt to derail your career.

I then suggest solutions to meaningfully address clerks’ concerns.

The public messaging around #MeToo should focus on the benefits to survivors of speaking out.

As we approach the sixth anniversary of the #MeToo Movement, LAP’s President and Founder Aliza Shatzman argues that it’s time for a #MeToo movement in the judiciary. As more law clerks are finally empowered to share their experiences, we’ll force desperately needed change in the courts, hold powerful people accountable for misconduct, and change the culture in the legal profession from one of silence, to one of candid dialogue around workplace conduct.