Work Text:
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Music: Marching Music -Homeward Bound By John Philip Sousa
Length: 32:15
It went without saying - you could tell quite a bit about a person by looking at where they worked.
Justice Roberto Mendoza kept a bowl of lollipops on his table when Charlie entered his office. They were wrapped in multicolored foil, bubble letters in yellow childish print. Welcoming, if a bit overeager. Justice Dreifort set his office with copies of his publications (autobiography, three essays, fifteen articles) lining the bookshelf and a cactus on his desk. Proud. President Bartlet had kept the Oval office's walls striped, portrait of George Washington snug next to a shelf of trinkets, pictures upon pictures of his family on his desk. A trash can that was mostly stuffed with paper, tissues, and the occasional Egg Cream Soda. That had told Charlie a lot about President Bartlet when he entered the West Wing, but to Bartlet's credit, he was the reason Charlie's credo was 'you could tell quite a bit about a person' rather than 'you can tell everything about a person'.
Step 1 of Justice Christopher Mulready. The previous year's four clerks waiting outside. High expectations.
Charlie had come into the office having eaten salmon and two bananas for breakfast, and three cups of mouthwash to be safe. The starch white of his shirt kept nipping at his throat. One of his shoes had gotten a bit scuffed. One of the marble stairs. Yikes.
"Mr. Young, wonderful to see you." said one of the Mulready clerks as he opened up the door. Charlie straightened immediately. His eyes lingered a little on the other applicant, a young hispanic kid maybe a few years younger than himself. He had ducked out with a rather concerned expression on his face. Bad sign?
Still, the polished wooden oak creaked under the forcefullness of his rise. No time to wipe that dirt off - well, he had bigger problems if scuffed shoes was the determinant of his applicatory success. "Hey, you got everything prepared for the interview?"
Charlie nodded - the clerk beamed right back. "Great. Break a leg. Good luck, kid," he offered, exiting the hall.
Entering Justice Christopher Mulready's office room, one could tell three things.
One: Cinnamon cologne. Heavy. Not daily-wear heavy, but stronger than you'd expect if it was only a holiday spray. Sam Seaborn would have had a fit.
"Justice Christopher Mulready, sir-" Charlie said, earnest as he could. The Justice's face had grown thinner since his appointment, black hair glossy, but still greying. The handshake was surprisingly bony. If he were already a clerk, Charlie would've been asking some of his peers about their boss's work-life balance.
Two: Walls bare except for a landscape painting on the wall. It was a sunset - or a sunrise? - over a mountainous landscape. Probably Northwest.
Charlie sat down at the chair - leather - opposite to Justice Mulready, and glanced at the papers on the table. His resume, transcript, letters, recommendations - maybe too thick? Mulready looked as though he'd read them. There was a copy of Mulready's book American Democrats and the Triumph of Socialism . Its 600 pages were thicker in real life than online.
Mulready's voice was pinched, slightly wheezish when he spoke.
"One of Justice Mendoza's top feeders," he noted. Judge Ellis Kagan, the Third Circuit Judge that Charlie clerked for. "She notes that you work diligently and attentively, and maintain a respectful environment. Draftwise, your writing is phenomenal. You maintain close relations to your bosses from your previous work."
"In the White House prior to entering Georgetown Law School, I was Personal Aide to the President of the United States for six years, and served as Special Aide to the White House Chief of Staff for two years until the end of the Bartlet Administration. Though of less note, I then served as TA for Professor Colletsven. After that I clerked for the Third Circuit under Judge Kagan through law school."
"You received letters from some excellent Judges from the lower circuit...law professors...Professor Quispe from Dartmouth. Great college. There are those who love it." Mulready glanced up at Charlie, but the cue was too short to take it as an invitation to laugh. "But I notice that a lot of these letters are from your time at the White House."Ms. Fiderer, Mr. Seaburn, Mrs. Lyman, Ms. Cregg - with few exceptions I can't help but notice most of these people are not in the legal field?"
"Yes. They were of the hopes their letters could show a bit of my personality and work ethic outside of the legal sphere. The former Chief of Staff was very adamant about helping."
"You're close to them?"
"Ms. Cregg, Ms. Fiderer, President Bartlet - all of these people, provided a lot of support for me in getting my legal career started in the first place. Without their encouragement, I would... I would have sat in front of you, but I would not have in this context today," Charlie amended. "I had a difficult time adjusting in Georgetown Law School when I first entered. Balancing study with my job as part of the Bartlet Administration resulted in a lot of late night phone calls, class advice, all of it helping me to adjust to the shock. It was outside-of-work support that I still appreciate to this day."
"Networking," Mulready noted. He snapped the cap off his pen upon noticing Charlie's clarifications begin- "Oh, don't worry. I'm not accusing you of nepotism. God knows there are people far more responsible for it than you are.” He licked the pads of his fingers before continuing to flip through the pages.
"Alright. You provided a lovely catalogue of some of the projects you worked on under Judge Kagan. As team leader, she says that you were always first to respond to memos, wrote the legal opinions for various high-level criminal cases. And before that, in law school, you published an article about mass incarceration. What do you plan to do after leaving this clerking opportunity?”
”Appellate lawyership.”
”No BigLaw? Any law professor openings? Aiming for a judgeship of your own?”
"I'm more focused on the idea of entering an area of law where I can have the biggest impact."
"Lots of it is patent cases," Mulready warned half-heartedly.
His eyes scanned the paper. Charlie waited for the questions to continue, but the Justice closed the file almost flippantly.
"Well, your resume appears perfect."
Three: There was a large taxidermied stag head that the Justice kept nailed to the wall above his side of the desk. It was the first thing at your eye level when you walked into the green-carpeted office. Right opposite. It hovered just out of the corner of Charlie's eye where he sat.
“Do you appreciate honesty, Mr. Young?”
Charlie blinked.
”I am not accepting your application."
The jolt of pain Charlie felt at that statement was not unanticipated, but he was expecting it to be said after his interview, not during it. A knife twisted in his gut.
Mulready rubbed his eyelids, face screwing "You would have better luck being hired by Justice Dreiford than by me." He elaborated. "And I figure both of us are low on your want list. Going through all nine Justices just in case?"
"You're the third one I'm meeting with," Charlie muttered. "Justice Dreiford was the first."
"If he does accept you in, resign," Mulready advised, "He likes bringing a token liberal in to beat around. But anyways. Don't get me wrong. Your writing is superb, lovely. but our ideological differences would make work a hassle for both of us. And I trust your judicial activism stance is not looking forward to drafting dissents based on strict constitutionalist arguments about how the overstretching of the ninth amendment unduly politicizes the judicial structure by turning unelected judges into lawmakers, undermining our democracy.”
"I actually thought that part about animus being a neutral force was valid." It was a smaller salve. "And I see the value in adhering to the text of a document as closely as possible - interpreting the law as plain text is essential to any legal system."
"We're all textualists," Mulready appeared to be quoting - "though some of us don't know how to read"
"Chapter 3," Mulready conceded with a sigh. "Though if any of your other works are clear, you are one of those people who would indeed 'plead the ninth'. We don't need to get into a debate right now."
"I really believe," Charlie said anyways. "That I could be of great use and skill in your office. There were times I didn't agree with President Bartlet or Judge Kagan. Nevertheless, I respected them, I listened to them, and I appreciated their guidance."
"Yes." Mulready stopped. He smiled. He re-flipped the file again, reminded. "'personality and work ethic outside'... its interesting. They and you are purposefully downplaying it."
"'It?'"
"The personal connection," Mulready elaborated. "It's like they think if they say it it'll sound nepotistic."
”We were close personally," Charlie's turn to concede, "But it had minimal impact on my judicial philosophy aside from the work ethic, strategies, and people skills I developed there.”
”No, it's not necessary? It gives insight as to what kind of person you are. The people you like to spend time with. And the people you enjoy spending time with impacts how you work. And- alright, hold on. 'As a teen, I worked at a variety of odd jobs to help support my mother, sister, and myself. Though a gruelling task, from waiting tables to shovelling manure, the experience taught me to appreciate the value of hard labor. The kind people I met during these years were especially meaningful to me-' and then you go on to provide a series of examples. Mr. Young-"
It was clear that Mulready wasn't going to relent. "At this point, call me Charlie."
"Charlie," Mulready frowned. He sounded like he wanted to switch back, but shrugged instead. "You spend less detail talking about your years at Article II than you do being a waiter at a Maryland country golf club."
"It's not illegal," Charlie said, "And it's less personal than putting in the fact that I dated President Bartlet's daughter."
"Was it hard to leave the West Wing?"
Charlie raised an eyebrow.
"Think of this as a hypothetical. It's leading."
"I was let off by President Bartlet - not for anything that I did wrong-"
"I figured, his recommendation was stunning-"
"- He just wanted me to leave the White House and expand my horizons. It wasn't my choice to leave."
"And would you have stayed?"
"I made a promise to branch out after the White House. Not be tethered down. But it was a nice place to be. I didn't want to move on, and for a while, I didn't."
"Chief of Staff Cregg."
"And other people. I'm not one to flee the ship. It was, I admit, easier to work with them even in harder times, than it was with the Judge and his clerks there. I was close to those people, and..." He shrugged. "...It was a bit of a different environment with the Judge."
"You were amiable and a hard worker, but he provided no accounts of any Constitution-gifting. And to be clear, if that was all I could expect from you from the clerkship, I would not have cared."
"Yeah, no." Charlie sighed. The offense irritated his fingers, and it made his jaw itch. "I know. I see where you're going, your honor. It was nice to have a new family. And that played a role into how...easy it was. To get into that mode. And not want to leave. A lot of that was personality. A lot of that was the idealism."
"And all of that, is why I feel as though the emotional context is quite necessary to include."
"You figured it out without me spilling it, clearly."
"I've gotten a list of phone calls from 2006 on. I'm sorry to say I cannot accept you. Even if you could respect adhering to my ideologies when drafting," Mulready said, "A lot of my clerks are not responsible for writing majority or concurring opinions. I find it easier to make writings sound like me when I write them. And the dissents I require clerks to overview the most. Those require the most in-depth work and review. You would not appreciate working for that alongside three radically conservative cabalistic paper-pushers."
"I would still very much like to object. The connections I made under the Bartlet Administration do not impact how I can work alongside you and my fellow clerks - I mean, other Justices hire clerks with ideological differences all the time, and you work alongside them. It's a bit disappointing that I don't have the chance to prove myself."
”And I appreciate that." Mulready noted. "Having 'passion' for one's work is totally overrated anyways. But I am adamant in believing you would be incompatible with the other clerks I may hire- is that wrong?"
"Admittedly," Charlie said, "working 24/7 alongside death-penalty supporting Federalist Society alumni, would be somewhat grating. But you know. It irks me, feeling like you wasted my time."
Mulready chuckled. The dismissiveness was also grating. "Looks as though we have ended early. Do you have any questions you would like to ask?"
Charlie mulled it over.
"Do you always tell your applicants if they're accepted or not during the interview?” he asked. A tinge of annoyance seeped in, that he had somewhat wasted his time. The leather chair squeaked when he got up to shake Mulready's hand once more, his other hand swatting at some of the rumples that had developed on his suit.
"Sometimes, I think even dream-headed liberals have potential to bear it." Before Charlie could ask, a shrug. "Appellate? You're far too up for a challenge, for what it's worth - I congratulate you on your clerkship, Mr. Young. Though it will not be under me. What's your next interview?"
The clerk hadn't returned yet - Charlie figured that was fine. "Chief Justice Lang," he rolled the balls of his feet back over to look at Mulready for a beat. A gnawing feeling in his gut forced him to turn around. Expecting some help. "No tips?"
”She'll make you go over it point for point. Prepare some water for that interview.”
“Thank you,” Charlie decided after a moment. That at least, wasn't a waste.