# Judicial Law Clerks

US SOC code 23-1012. Markdown version of https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/23-1012

Also called: Judicial clerk, Law clerk, Federal law clerk, Federal clerk, Appellate law clerk.

## In brief

In May 2025, [BLS](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip) counted **13,290** US judicial law clerks, with median pay of **$64,920** a year. Of the BLS counts since 2012, the highest was **16,630**, in May 2019. The earliest figure here is [an estimate](https://www.fjc.gov/history/administration/court-officers-and-staff-law-clerks) of **9** from 1919, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for judicial law clerks: Westlaw Precision and Lexis Advance, 2012 to 2023.

## What the sources say

### Official outlook

BLS projects employment to grow 2.8% from 2025 to 2035. Source: [BLS Employment Projections 2025-35](https://data.bls.gov/projections/nationalMatrix?queryParams=23-1012&ioType=o).

### AI exposure studies

- **44.8%** of this job's tasks are exposed to large language models. Not a forecast of job losses. [Eloundou and others, 2023](https://github.com/openai/GPTs-are-GPTs/blob/main/data/occ_level.csv)

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. BLS publishes these counts as yearly survey snapshots and cautions against reading them as a precise trend. In May 2021 BLS changed how it estimates these counts (a model-based method using three years of survey data) and moved fully to the 2018 occupation codes, so part of a change across 2021 can come from the method rather than the work.

## Judicial Law Clerks employment and pay by year

- On record since: 1882
- Latest US employment: 13,290 (May 2025). Source: BLS OEWS May 2025 [3]
- Latest US median pay: $64,920 (May 2025). Source: BLS OEWS May 2025 [7]
- Outlook: +2.8% by 2035. Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35 [20]

### All 22 years of cited US data

| Year | US employment | Annual pay (median unless marked) | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1919 | 9 (estimate) | n/a | Est., Federal Judicial Center [1] |
| 1936 | 53 (estimate) | n/a | Est., Federal Judicial Center [1] |
| 1968 | n/a | $9,000 (estimate) | Est., FRASER / BLS [4] |
| 1990 | n/a | $30,000 (estimate) | Est., Congressional Research Service [5] |
| 1998 | 3,598 (estimate) | n/a | Est., NALP [2] |
| 2000 | n/a | $42,000 (estimate) | Est., US Courts [6] |
| 2010 | 25,150 | $39,780 | BLS OEWS May 2010 [3] |
| 2011 | 18,300 | $42,450 | BLS OEWS May 2011 [3] |
| 2012 | 11,200 | $47,120 | BLS OEWS May 2012 [3] |
| 2013 | 10,890 | $47,640 | BLS OEWS May 2013 [3] |
| 2014 | 11,660 | $48,640 | BLS OEWS May 2014 [3] |
| 2015 | 12,660 | $50,740 | BLS OEWS May 2015 [3] |
| 2016 | 13,410 | $51,760 | BLS OEWS May 2016 [3] |
| 2017 | 15,260 | $51,330 | BLS OEWS May 2017 [3] |
| 2018 | 16,350 | $53,540 | BLS OEWS May 2018 [3] |
| 2019 | 16,630 | $54,010 | BLS OEWS May 2019 [3] |
| 2020 | 14,690 | $57,510 | BLS OEWS May 2020 [3] |
| 2021 | 14,800 | $50,750 | BLS OEWS May 2021 [3] |
| 2022 | 15,540 | $57,490 | BLS OEWS May 2022 [3] |
| 2023 | 14,680 | $57,490 | BLS OEWS May 2023 [3] |
| 2024 | 13,220 | $60,400 | BLS OEWS May 2024 [3] |
| 2025 | 13,290 | $64,920 | BLS OEWS May 2025 [3] |

## Sources (73)

### Employment series

1. [Federal Judicial Center -- "Court Officers and Staff: Law Clerks" (Congressional authorization history, 1919)](https://www.fjc.gov/history/administration/court-officers-and-staff-law-clerks), Federal Judicial Center
2. [NALP -- "Courting Clerkships: The NALP Judicial Clerkship Study" (2000) -- clerkship distribution by court type for Class of 1998](https://www.nalp.org/courtingclerkships), National Association for Law Placement
3. BLS OEWS, national cross-industry estimates (flat file), Bureau of Labor Statistics. Editions: [2010](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm10nat.zip), [2011](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm11nat.zip), [2012](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm12nat.zip), [2013](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm13nat.zip), [2014](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm14nat.zip), [2015](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm15nat.zip), [2016](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm16nat.zip), [2017](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm17nat.zip), [2018](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm18nat.zip), [2019](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm19nat.zip), [2020](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm20nat.zip), [2021](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm21nat.zip), [2022](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm22nat.zip), [2023](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm23nat.zip), [2024](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm24nat.zip), [2025](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip)

### Wage series

4. [FRASER / BLS -- "Wage Chronology: Federal Employees Under the General Schedule Pay System" (1924-1975, BLS Bulletin 1870)](https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/bls/bls_1870_1975.pdf), Bureau of Labor Statistics / FRASER
5. [Congressional Research Service -- "Federal Employees: Pay and Pension Increases Since 1969" (JSP structure and federal judicial compensation history)](https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/94-971.pdf), Congressional Research Service / Federation of American Scientists
6. [US Courts -- "Judiciary Salary Plan Pay Rates" (historical pay rate structure)](https://www.uscourts.gov/careers/compensation/judiciary-salary-plan-pay-rates), United States Courts
7. BLS OEWS, national cross-industry estimates (flat file), Bureau of Labor Statistics. Editions: [2010](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm10nat.zip), [2011](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm11nat.zip), [2012](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm12nat.zip), [2013](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm13nat.zip), [2014](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm14nat.zip), [2015](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm15nat.zip), [2016](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm16nat.zip), [2017](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm17nat.zip), [2018](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm18nat.zip), [2019](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm19nat.zip), [2020](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm20nat.zip), [2021](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm21nat.zip), [2022](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm22nat.zip), [2023](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm23nat.zip), [2025](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip)
8. [BLS OEWS May 2024, national cross-industry estimates (flat file)](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm24nat.zip), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

### Tool eras

9. [West Publishing / Thomson Reuters -- "Key Number System" (American Digest history, Key Number classification origin)](https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/westlaw), Thomson Reuters / Westlaw
10. [Federal Judicial Center -- "Court Officers and Staff: Law Clerks" (early clerk duties and working conditions)](https://www.fjc.gov/history/administration/court-officers-and-staff-law-clerks), Federal Judicial Center
11. [SCOTUSblog -- "Supreme Court stenographers: Law clerks and secretaries of an earlier era" (clerk working conditions 1910-1940)](https://www.scotusblog.com/2016/03/supreme-court-stenographers-law-clerks-and-secretaries-of-an-earlier-era/), SCOTUSblog
12. [History of Legal Tech: A LexisNexis Company Spotlight -- LEXIS launch April 2, 1973](https://blog.linksquares.com/history-of-legal-tech-lexisnexis), LinkSquares / LexisNexis
13. [Wikipedia -- Westlaw (history: 1975 launch, 1978 full-text retrieval)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westlaw), Wikipedia
14. [Wikipedia -- LexisNexis (online platform development, 1990s-2000s)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LexisNexis), Wikipedia
15. [US Courts -- CM/ECF (Case Management/Electronic Case Files) system overview](https://www.uscourts.gov/court-records/electronic-filing-cmecf), United States Courts
16. [Thomson Reuters -- CoCounsel Legal with Deep Research (August 2025 launch)](https://www.lawnext.com/2025/08/thomson-reuters-launches-cocounsel-legal-with-agentic-ai-and-deep-research-capabilities-along-with-a-new-and-final-version-of-westlaw.html), LawNext / Thomson Reuters
17. [Magesh et al. -- "Hallucination-Free? Assessing the Reliability of Leading AI Legal Research Tools" (JELS 2025; 17-33% hallucination rates)](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jels.12413), Journal of Empirical Legal Studies / Wiley
18. [Federal Judicial Center -- "An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence for Federal Judges" (FJC AI guidance for federal courts)](https://www.fjc.gov/content/375968/introduction-artificial-intelligence-federal-judges), Federal Judicial Center
19. [Reuters Legal -- AI policies spreading across US federal courts, 30+ local rules by late 2025](https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/us-federal-judges-adopt-varying-policies-use-ai-court-filings-2024-05-01/), Reuters

### Forecasts and exposure studies

20. [BLS Employment Projections 2025-35, National Employment Matrix: 23-1012 Judicial law clerks (2025: 14.0 thousand; 2035: 14.4 thousand; +2.8%)](https://data.bls.gov/projections/nationalMatrix?queryParams=23-1012&ioType=o), Bureau of Labor Statistics
21. [Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), "GPTs are GPTs", occupation-level exposure data occ\_level.csv (O\*NET-SOC 23-1012.00, human-rated β 0.448)](https://github.com/openai/GPTs-are-GPTs/blob/main/data/occ_level.csv), OpenAI

### Historical notes

22. [Federal Judicial Center -- "Court Officers and Staff: Law Clerks" (Horace Gray, first law clerk, 1882)](https://www.fjc.gov/history/administration/court-officers-and-staff-law-clerks), Federal Judicial Center
23. [Federal Judicial Center -- "Landmark Legislation: Judiciary Act of 1891" (Evarts Act; circuit courts of appeals)](https://www.fjc.gov/history/legislation/landmark-legislation-judiciary-act-1891), Federal Judicial Center
24. [History of Legal Tech: A LexisNexis Company Spotlight -- LEXIS launched April 2, 1973](https://blog.linksquares.com/history-of-legal-tech-lexisnexis), LinkSquares / LexisNexis
25. [Wikipedia -- Law clerk (US history: three clerks per justice from 1970; four authorized from 1980)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_clerk), Wikipedia
26. [Wikipedia -- Mata v. Avianca, Inc. (May 2023 sanctions order; AI hallucination in federal court)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mata_v._Avianca,_Inc.), Wikipedia

### Predecessors & successors

27. [Federal Judicial Center -- "Court Officers and Staff: Law Clerks" (clerks drawn from top law school graduates since Gray's first hire in 1882)](https://www.fjc.gov/history/administration/court-officers-and-staff-law-clerks), Federal Judicial Center
28. [OSCAR -- "Qualifications, Salary, Benefits" (JSP-13 and JSP-14 grades for clerks with 2-3 years of post-bar experience)](https://oscar.uscourts.gov/qualifications_salary_benefits), United States Courts / OSCAR
29. [Law.com -- AI-specialty lateral associate hires +106% YoY (Mar 2026): AI-fluent former clerks positioned for premium lateral roles](https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/03/31/legal-professionals-arm-themselves-with-ai-expertise-across-practice-areas-/?slreturn=20260620123701), Law.com

### Present-day analysis

- [Eloundou et al. 2024 — GPTs are GPTs (Science)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130), accessed 2026-05-24
- [O\*NET 30.3 — Judicial Law Clerks (23-1012.00)](https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/23-1012.00), accessed 2026-05-24
- [Federal Judicial Center — Artificial Intelligence (2025): FJC AI resources and guidance for federal courts, including clerk-level research adoption](https://www.fjc.gov/subject/artificial-intelligence), accessed 2026-06-21
- [NCSC — Artificial Intelligence in Courts (2025): resources, readiness guide, and AI pilots across state court systems](https://www.ncsc.org/resources-courts/artificial-intelligence-ai), accessed 2026-06-21
- [Magesh et al., Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (2025) — Hallucination-Free? Assessing the Reliability of Leading AI Legal Research Tools (17-33% hallucination rates)](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jels.12413), accessed 2026-05-24
- [Thomson Reuters — CoCounsel Legal with Deep Research (Aug 2025): multi-step research strategies with Westlaw + Practical Law in parallel](https://www.lawnext.com/2025/08/thomson-reuters-launches-cocounsel-legal-with-agentic-ai-and-deep-research-capabilities-along-with-a-new-and-final-version-of-westlaw.html), accessed 2026-05-24
- [Thomson Reuters — Future of Professionals 2025 (190 hrs/year AI savings per legal professional; legal research is top AI use case)](https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/technology/future-of-professionals-2025/), accessed 2026-05-24
- [LexisNexis — Lexis+ with Protégé Launch (Feb 2026): 300+ legal workflows + Shepard's Verify Trust Markers for AI citation checking](https://www.lawnext.com/2026/02/lexisnexis-launches-lexis-with-protege-replacing-lexis-ai-with-an-end-to-end-workflow-platform.html), accessed 2026-05-24
- [Harvey AI — $11B valuation, 100k+ users across 1,300 orgs including 80 of Am Law 100; chambers research and drafting use cases (Mar 2026)](https://theplanettools.ai/blog/harvey-ai-11-billion-valuation-200m-raise-vertical-ai), accessed 2026-05-24
- [Fifth Circuit — Decision on Proposed AI Rule (June 2024): court declined to adopt a new AI certification rule, relying instead on existing accuracy duties under FRAP; sets context for AI disclosure standards in federal courts](https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/docs/default-source/default-document-library/court-decision-on-proposed-rule.pdf?sfvrsn=5967c92d_2), accessed 2026-06-21
- [Reuters Legal — AI policies spreading across US federal courts, 30+ local rules by late 2025 requiring AI disclosure](https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/us-federal-judges-adopt-varying-policies-use-ai-court-filings-2024-05-01/), accessed 2026-05-24
- [ABA Journal — May It Please the Court: How do judges use generative AI? (2025): judicial AI adoption, bench memo workflows, hallucination verification responsibility](https://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/How-do-judges-use-generative-AI), accessed 2026-06-21
- [Law.com Legaltech News — AI-specialty lateral associate hires +106% YoY (Mar 2026): post-clerkship AI fluency is a hiring differentiator](https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/03/31/legal-professionals-arm-themselves-with-ai-expertise-across-practice-areas-/?slreturn=20260620123701), accessed 2026-05-24
- [BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook — Judges, Magistrate Judges, and Magistrates (context for chambers outlook 2024-2034)](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/legal/judges-and-hearing-officers.htm), accessed 2026-05-24
- [Above the Law — Federal Clerkship Hiring 2025-2026: AI tool experience increasingly valued in chambers applications](https://abovethelaw.com/category/legal-jobs/clerkships/), accessed 2026-05-24

How to read these figures: https://futurehistory.earth/methodology. Every figure links to its own source; gaps stay gaps.