Despite what Kleinheider used as his post title over at Post Politics (“a blogjam of NashvillePost.com), Judge Sotomayor’s 2005 remarks about the experiences of a district court clerkship versus a circuit court clerkship are thoughtful and fully-fleshed out:
“[T]they’re looking for people with court of appeals experience, because it is — court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know — and I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don’t make law, I know. OK, I know. I’m not promoting it, and I’m not advocating it, I’m — you know. OK. Having said that, the court of appeals is where, before the Supreme Court makes the final decision, the law is percolating — its interpretation, its application. And Judge ______ is right, I often explain to people that when you’re on the district court, you’re looking to do justice in the individual case. So you’re looking much more to the facts of the case than you are to the application of the law. because the application of the law is not precedential. So the facts control. On the court of appeals, you are looking to how the law is developing, so that it will then be applied to a broad class of cases. And so you’re always thinking about the ramifications of this ruling on the next step in the development of the law. You can make a choice and say, “I don’t care about the next step and sometimes we do. Or sometimes we say we’ll worry about that when we get to it – like what the Supreme Court just did. But the point is, that’s the differences – practical differences – in the two experiences are. The district court is controlled chaos. And not so controlled most of the time. You are jumping from one project to another at a million miles an hour on any given day.â€
