In April 2009, a law student at American University asked Justice Scalia how a student from her school could become "outrageously successful" without "connections and elite degrees." (The clip begins around 52:00.) Scalia laughed out loud. He answered, "Just work hard and be very good." But then he digressed to a story about Judge Jeff Sutton.
Let me tell you a story. By and large, unless I have a professor on the faculty who is a good friend and preferably a former law clerk of mine whose judgment I can trust–I'm going to be picking for Supreme Court law clerks, I can't afford a miss. I just can't. So I'm going to be picking from the law schools that are the hardest to get into, they admit the best and the brightest. They may not teach very well, but you can't make a sow's ear purse out of a silk purse. If they come in the best and the brightest, they are probably going to leave the best and the brightest. One of my former clerks [Judge Jeff Sutton] who I am the most most proud of, now sits on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. And I always refer to him as one of my former law clerks. He wasn't one of my former law clerks. [Sutton] was Lewis Powell's clerk. After Lewis took senior status, Lewis didn't have much work. [Sutton] worked full time for me. So I couldn't tell the difference between [Sutton] and my other clerks. But I wouldn't have hired Jeff Sutton. For G-d's sake, he went to Ohio State. [Scalia laughs.] And he is one of the very best law clerks I've ever had. He is just a brilliant guy. So don't tell me this stuff about "what do you have to do to be successful." You have to be good. I think we're done.
Scalia relayed this story several times over the years, and he was fond of telling it. The upshot is that under his own policy, he would have never hired one of his favorite law clerks.
