From Supreme Court clerk to Capitol Hill

Position: Chief Counsel to Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah

Age: 32

Alma mater: Stanford University for undergrad degree, Yale for law degree

—————-

Washington Examiner: How did you come to be on the senator’s staff?

Levi: I clerked for the same justice that the senator clerked for, Justice [Samuel] Alito. We sort of came across each other through clerkship reunions and different other opportunities. So I came to know him a little bit.

Examiner: When did you clerk for Justice Alito?

Levi: In 2011 and 2012.

Examiner: So you’re a former Supreme Court clerk. What was that like?

Levi: It was wonderful. Justice Alito was a wonderful boss. He’s a wonderful person to work for. It was an incredible learning experience. You clerk with four other clerks for one justice, but you work closely with all of the other clerks from all of the other chambers. There are 36 or so clerks and you work with all of them one way or another. So it’s a good social experience, but it is a wonderful professional experience as well.

Examiner: What is a day in the life of a Supreme Court clerk like?

Levi: You have a number of primary tasks. One is preparing the justices for oral argument. It varies from justice to justice, but what we did is we would write a bench memo for the justice sort of identifying the different arguments in the case and the background of the case and then provide our analysis and view of the matter.

You give that to him and then he would read it in conjunction with reading all of the briefs in the case, and then you would have a discussion with him and all of your co-clerks before the oral argument. So you would sit down with him and talk through the case for a number of hours. He shoots questions at you. You do your best to respond.

It’s sort of a mini-oral argument before the oral argument to help him think through the case. Alito’s not someone who needs a hell of a lot of help, so it feels more like you’re the first punching bag before the real advocate in the case. But it’s a lot of fun.

Examiner: How involved are clerks in the drafting of positions?

Levi: That varies widely across chambers and it varies widely within the chambers, at least it did in the one I clerked in. Sometimes the first draft you write will be fundamentally re-written such that the end result looks nothing like the first draft. Sometimes, it is different and more is used and (the final version) bears some resemblance to the original version.

Alito is very engaged in the writing and is a very fast writer. He is not reliant on drafts in anyway. For Alito, the draft is notes he can use when he is writing it himself.

Examiner: So how did you get to know Sen. Lee during the clerkship?

Levi: The first time I met him, my co-clerks and I came over from the Supreme Court one day and met him near the end of the term. We talked about what it is like to clerk for the justice. We had heard about his service clerking for the justice on the 3rd Circuit and on the Supreme Court. We hit it off and I saw him a number of times thereafter, either stopping by and saying hi or seeing him at a clerkship reunion or whatever.

Then there was a vacancy on his staff. My predecessor on the staff was a friend of mine. He was a Scalia clerk the year before I clerked. When he was transitioning out, he alerted me that the position was opening.

Examiner: So Lee likes hiring former Supreme Court clerks then?

Levi: He’s had two of us. My predecessor, Matt Owen, was I believe the first Supreme Court clerk to have this job. I am the second. We’ll see how long we can keep the tradition up.

The senator is interested in getting to know and helping the Alito clerks. So he likes having whatever the current cohort is over there come over and chat and get to know him.

Examiner: What is a day in the life of a Lee Senate aide like, and how is it different from what you did on the court?

Levi: Well, I worked at a law firm for about two and a half years in between my time as a Supreme Court clerk and my time here. I worked for Paul Clement, who’s an appellate lawyer. He argued the Supreme Court healthcare case.

A big difference between the Supreme Court clerkship and the work I was doing as an appellate lawyer and the work I am doing here is with those other jobs, you’re usually working alone. You’re in a room drafting an opinion or writing a brief. Sometimes you’re talking to the justice in the case of the clerkship. Sometimes, you’re talking to another lawyer or a client, but usually it is pretty solitary work. Also, you drill pretty deep in a particular project and you stay on it for a while.

In this job, it is the polar opposite of that. There are a thousand things happening all of the time. You are almost never alone. You are often in meetings. You are often jumping from one issue to another. You are very rarely drilling all that deep and when you do, it is late at night or on the weekends. Otherwise, it is just staying an inch deep and trying to keep up with the volume.

Examiner: What are some of the things you have had the opportunity to dig deep on?

Levi: A couple of things. One is the senator’s efforts on criminal justice reform. That has been a priority of his. That’s a legislative project that I oversee. That is an effort that has continued the entire time that I have been here, which is a year.

Examiner: The conventional wisdom is that everything here in Congress is at partisan loggerheads, but this is one thing where there has been cooperation.

Levi: That’s one thing with Sen. Lee that I have been quite impressed by. He is quite adept at identifying areas where both sides can work together, even if they are slim areas of agreement, where something productive can be done.

Examiner: How is it done? Is it literally people just pilling into a room and rolling up their sleeves?

Levi: That is exactly it. It is meeting with as small or as large of a group as there is and just hashing things out, and some cases just not leaving the room until you can agree on something.

Examiner: Are there any other ex-Supreme Court clerks who you know of who are on lawmakers’ staffs in Congress? If so, do you guys ever meet?

Levi: Right now, I am aware of only one other ex-Supreme Court clerk who was a staffer on the Hill, and that is my predecessor on Sen. Lee’s staff, Matt Owens, who is now chief of staff to Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio. There are other ex-Supreme Courts on the Hill, but they are senators. Mike Lee is one. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is another. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is the third.

Examiner: At some point in the future, do you hope to join their august company?

Levi: [Laughs] I should be so lucky.

Examiner: So what do you see yourself doing once you’re finished with Capitol Hill?

Levi: This is a hard job to beat.