Four UVA Law Grads Will Clerk at Supreme Court During 2015-16 Term

by Eric Williamson

Four graduates of the University of Virginia School of Law will clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court during the 2015-16 term.

Galen Bascom '13

Galen Bascom '13, Andrew Kilberg ’14 and Jonathan Urick '13 will clerk for Justices Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia, respectively, and Ben Tyson J.D.-MBA '14 will clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts.

Virginia is fourth in contributing the most clerks to the U.S. Supreme Court from 2005-14, after Harvard, Stanford and Yale. (More) The nine justices hire 36 clerks each year.

Bascom previously clerked for Chief Judge Merrick B. Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In August, she began her service as a Bristow Fellow for the Office of the Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice.

"I know I have been so lucky and that the support I received from my professors was instrumental," Bascom said. "It meant a lot to be able to share the news with them."

Andrew Kilberg '14

Kilberg is currently clerking for 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III '72, and was on his lunch break with Wilkinson and his fellow clerks when Kennedy called him personally. "I was in a quasi-state of shock," Kilberg said about receiving the news.

But when he told his parents, who both hold law degrees, they were exuberant. "When I reached my mother on her cell, she reacted with a very loud 'Yes!'" he said. "She's a big fan of Justice Kennedy."

Jonathan Urick '13

Urick is currently clerking for Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Columbus, Ohio. In the 2013-14 term, he clerked for Judge Amul Thapar of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

I’m incredibly honored and humbled by Justice Scalia's confidence in me, and I'm eager to learn from his wealth of experience," said Urick, whose interview with Scalia also included a challenging session with his clerks. "Leaving the interview felt a bit like leaving a law school exam, but the waiting was far more nerve-racking."

Ben Tyson J.D.-MBA '14

Tyson graduated from both UVA Law and the Darden School of Business through the dual-degree J.D.-MBA program. He is currently clerking for Judge Srikanth Srinivasan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

"This year with Judge Srinivasan has been amazing, and now this gives me something incredibly exciting to look forward to when my clerkship [with Srinivasan] is done," Tyson said. "I'm in the middle of a fun two years."

The students applied for the highly competitive positions with impressive student credentials, and several won the school's top awards.

Bascom received UVA Law's Margaret G. Hyde Award, which recognizes outstanding student scholarship and involvement, and the Jackson Walker LLP Award, for having the highest grade-point average in her class after four semesters.

Urick received the Robert E. Goldsten Award for Distinction in the Classroom, which recognizes the student who the faculty determined contributed the most to classroom participation.

Tyson won the Carl M. Franklin Prize, which honors the student with the highest grade-point average after the first year. At graduation, he received the Traynor Prize and Law School Alumni Association Best Note Award. He also received the Faculty Award for Academic Excellence, given to the student with the most outstanding academic record at graduation.

Among the other hands-on activities the students participated in were the Virginia Law Review, which published articles by Kilberg and Bascom in 2014, and the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, which prepared and won the federal firearms case Rosemond v. United States last term.