{"id":99072,"date":"2025-01-03T11:01:29","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T19:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/03\/law-clerks-run-the-courtroom-in-2024s-lawyer-of-the-year-competition\/"},"modified":"2025-01-03T11:01:29","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T19:01:29","slug":"law-clerks-run-the-courtroom-in-2024s-lawyer-of-the-year-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/03\/law-clerks-run-the-courtroom-in-2024s-lawyer-of-the-year-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Law Clerks Run The Courtroom In 2024\u2019s Lawyer Of The Year Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

With competitors like the outgoing special counsel and a lawyer who defined zealous advocacy this year, you may be surprised by the winner.
\nThe post Law Clerks Run The Courtroom In 2024\u2019s Lawyer Of The Year Competition appeared first on Above the Law.<\/p>\n

\"gavelWith 2024 in the rearview mirror, it\u2019s now time to announce the winner of our annual Lawyer of the Year<\/a>\u00a0competition. The vote for the honor was not a close one, not even one little bit. Our top candidate took home more than 50% of the vote, while our second-place finisher (perhaps one of our worthiest contenders) had 26% of the total tally. In fact, the new titleholder secured almost 300 more votes than this year\u2019s silver medalist.<\/p>\n

Before we announce which luminary lawyer prevailed, let\u2019s review Above the Law\u2019s past Lawyers of the Year:<\/p>\n

In a year where the legitimacy of elections and the legitimacy of the winners of those elections took hold across the national news, it makes sense that amid a very curious voting cycle, the lawyer who came out on top noted in his self-nomination that he was \u201ccompletely unqualified\u201d to win but that \u201c[f]ar less qualified people have won far more important elections this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, it was Ryan Protter<\/a>, a recent law school graduate who currently serves as a law clerk in the New Jersey Appellate Division, who took home the title in our 2024 Lawyer of the Year competition. Referring to himself on LinkedIn<\/a> as the \u201cdark horse candidate\u201d in this race, voters helped Protter \u201cdo the funniest thing ever,\u201d and handed him the LOTY honors. Congratulations to Ryan Protter on achieving the ultimate punchline.<\/p>\n

Speaking of law clerks, our silver medalist was Aliza Shatzman<\/a>, founder and president of the\u00a0Legal Accountability Project<\/a>. In what seemed like a Hurculean task, she made a great deal of progress for federal law clerks this year. After what required a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, Shatzman launched the Centralized Clerkships Database<\/a>, essentially a \u201cGlassdoor for Judges,\u201d a tool meant to empower clerkship applicants with much-needed transparency and inside information from former clerks about judicial work environments. Click\u00a0here<\/a> to read some of her excellent columns on this topic. Congratulations to Aliza Shatzman on achieving what many once considered to be nigh impossible for federal law clerks in the United States.<\/p>\n

Congratulations to all of our Lawyer of the Year finalists, congratulations to our 2024 Lawyer of the Year, Ryan Protter, and a very special congratulations to our runner-up, Aliza Shatzman.<\/p>\n

\n

\"StaciStaci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With competitors like the outgoing special counsel and a lawyer who defined zealous advocacy this year, you may be surprised by the winner. The post Law Clerks Run The Courtroom In 2024\u2019s Lawyer Of The Year Competition appeared first on Above the Law. With 2024 in the rearview mirror, it\u2019s now time to announce the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":99073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law","category-legal_matters"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/gavel-trophy-law-ranking-GettyImages-1193503904-G2GYgG.jpeg?fit=2000%2C1500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}