Gorsuch Establishes Independence Early

In a sign of how independently Justice Neil Gorsuch plans to operate while serving on the U.S. Supreme Court, he confirmed this week that he will not join the Court’s labor pool, in which justices share their law clerks in an effort to streamline decisions on which cases to hear. Justice Samuel A. Alito is the only other justice to not participate in the pool. Notably, Gorsuch served in such a pool while serving as a law clerk to Justices Byron R. White and Anthony M. Kennedy in 1993. The pool has been criticized for giving law clerks undue power, and shrinking the size of the Court’s docket.