Posted by David Post:
The Joy of Clerkship, Con't
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_12_31-2007_01_06.shtml#1167867161
A press release from [1]Grove Press describes the forthcoming novel by
Saira Rao (entitled "Chambermaid") this way:
The devil holds a gavel in this wickedly entertaining debut novel
about a young attorney�s eventful year clerking for a federal
judge. Sheila Raj is a recent graduate of a top-ten law school with
dreams of working for the ACLU, but law school did not prepare her
for the power-hungry sociopath, Judge Helga Friedman, who greets
her on her first day. While her beleaguered colleagues begin
quitting their jobs, Sheila is assigned to a high-profile death
penalty case and suddenly realizes that she has to survive the year
as Friedman�s chambermaid � not just her sanity, but actual lives
hang in the balance. With Chambermaid, debut novelist Saira Rao
breaks the code of silence surrounding the clerkship and boldly
takes us into the mysterious world of the third branch of US
government, where the leaders are not elected and can never be
fired. With its biting wit and laugh-out-loud humor, this novel
will change everything you think you know about how great lawyers,
and great judges, are made.
I haven't read the book (it's not going to be released until Spring),
so I have no idea whether and how Ms. Rao "breaks the code of silence
surrounding the clerkship" and I'm a tad skeptical that this book will
"change everything I think I know about how great lawyers and great
judges are made."
But what's particularly interesting about this is that Ms. Rao was
herself a law clerk for Judge Dolores Sloviter of the Third Circuit
Court of Appeals (according to the [2]WSJ blog). Rumors have been
circulating around Philadelphia for some time that Judge Sloviter has
become, shall we say, a very difficult person to get along with (and
to work for) in chambers. So my guess -- and it is, to be sure, only a
guess at this point -- is that this is a pretty thinly-disguised roman
a clef, with Ms. Rao herself as the idealistic "Sheila Raj" and Judge
Sloviter the "power-hungry sociopath, Judge Helga Friedman."
I suspect that this will cause quite a rumble in the rather insular
and staid world of Philadelphia's legal establishment.
References
1.
http://www.pgw.com/catalog/catalog.asp?DBKey=250&CatalogKey=394299&Action=View&Index=Page&Book=401873&Order=18
2. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/index.php?s=Sloviter&x=0&y=0
_______________________________________________
Volokh mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
