Judge Nazarian to Judges: Take the Accountability Pledge

LAP board member Judge Douglas R. M. Nazarian visits the California Appellate Law Podcast to speak with co-hosts Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis about LAP, the LAP Pledge, and LAP’s Clerkships Database.

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.