Greg Miller ’12 and Karim Kentfield ’12 will begin coveted U.S. Supreme Court clerkships in July—Miller for Justice Clarence Thomas, Kentfield for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Miller experienced exhilaration and heartache en route to the high court. He was set to clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia last year, until the jurist died unexpectedly. “That was the toughest news I’d received in a long time,” says Miller, who read Scalia’s book A Matter of Interpretation in high school. “Being hired as his law clerk was a dream come true. Losing out on that dream was difficult.”
His wish to clerk on the Supreme Court was delayed, but not derailed. An appellate associate at Vinson & Elkins’ Houston office, Miller—who had two federal clerkships under his belt—applied to clerk for Thomas months after Scalia’s death.
“Eric Stern (of Berkeley Law’s Career Development Office) did a great job making sure my recommendation letters and other materials were ready in time,” Miller recalls. “Professors Amanda Tyler, Jesse Choper, and John Yoo were also tremendously helpful.”
Kentfield, a tax associate at Skadden Arps in New York City, has also clerked for two federal judges. The former Google software engineer calls Justice Ginsburg “one of my legal heroes for her work on sex discrimination and women’s equality. It’s an enormous honor to clerk for such an inspiring person.”
In the same section as 1Ls, Kentfield and Miller later both worked on the California Law Review. “I feel very proud and lucky that we’ll represent Berkeley Law at the Supreme Court,” Kentfield says. —Andrew Cohen