KU News Release

2003 KU graduate selected to clerk for U.S. Supreme Court

LAWRENCE — A 2003 University of Kansas graduate who earned a law degree this spring at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., is the second Kansan recently selected for a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship in the 2008 term.

Jameson Reece Jones of Wichita, who earned degrees in American studies and civil engineering at KU, will clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia during the 2008-09 term. Jones is currently a clerk for U.S. Sixth Circuit Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton in Columbus, Ohio.

Earlier this month, KU’s School of Law announced that Travis Lenkner of Coats, a 2005 KU law graduate, will clerk for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy when the new term begins in October.

Although Lenkner and Jones did not meet when both were at KU in 2003, they did meet later when Lenkner was working in the Washington, D.C., offices of the Los Angeles law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. Jones was a 2006 summer associate for the firm, and Lenkner was assigned as his mentor.

The two young Kansans discovered they also each kept in contact with Stephen R. McAllister, KU law professor and former dean of the law school, who had been in private practice in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Washington, D.C., offices before joining the KU law faculty in 1993. As students, they had known McAllister as the KU law graduate and professor who had clerked for Justices Clarence Thomas and Byron White earlier in his career. Since graduating, both former students — as an undergraduate Jones took a course on the Supreme Court taught by McAllister — have sought McAllister’s advice as their own careers progressed.

McAllister said he is extremely proud of their selection as Supreme Court clerks. “It is a great honor for KU to have two KU alumni clerking at the Supreme Court the same year. Typically, there are only 35 or so clerks per year.

“Being a Supreme Court Clerk is both an honor and an incredibly rewarding experience. Supreme Court clerks see our nation’s highest court in action, behind the scenes, and assist the justices in resolving some of the most important cases of our time. Moreover, Supreme Court clerkships open doors and return rewards for the rest of one’s legal career, including the friendships and professional relationships that result from working with the other Supreme Court clerks — three dozen remarkably talented young lawyers from all over the country.”

Jones and Lenkner graduated from law school as members of the Order of the Coif, a national scholastic honor society in legal education, and both were involved in their schools’ law reviews. Jones was managing editor of the Stanford Law Review, and Lenkner was editor-in-chief of the Kansas Law Review.

Jones passed the Kansas bar exam this summer. He is the son of Bishop Scott Jones and Mary Lou Reece of Wichita and is a graduate of Edward Marcus High School in Flower Mound, Texas.

At Stanford, Jones was a member of the team that won the awards for best team and best brief in Stanford’s 2007 Marion Rice Kirkwood Moot Court Competition. He also participated in the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, providing students opportunities to work on various cases being prepared for the court.

At KU, Jones was among the small percentage of engineering students who seek two degrees. He combined his interests in history and culture with his engineering skills for his honors thesis “Water, Cultural Perspective, and Engineering Responsibility.” Jones grew up in Texas but spent summers visiting his maternal grandparents, H.W. and Marynell Reece, in Scandia, a farm community of about 400 residents in Republic County just south of Nebraska in central Kansas. He interviewed many Scandia residents for his honors thesis.

Jones was a member of several honor societies at KU, including Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi and Tau Beta Phi. He was a semifinalist in the 2003 competitions for Rhodes and Marshall scholarships.

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