Aliza Shatzman didn’t realize that federal judicial employees are not protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. That is until the judge she worked for in 2020 ended her clerkship early—for reasons that she thinks were due to gender discrimination.
She was also unaware that federal court clerks are at-will employees. Shatzman says the experience led to her co-founding the Legal Accountability Project, a nonprofit focused on helping law clerks have positive experiences. The organization plans to set up a clerkship reporting database and a database with the names of employment lawyers willing to represent federal clerks who need legal representation.
