On the Docket: Being Human With Attorney Noah Stern ’16

When Noah Stern ’16 catches up with his Whitman College friends about his work as a legal clerk to the Honorable Judge Lucy Haeran Koh, he inevitably gets asked this question: “So do you want to become a judge one day?”

“My reason for wanting to clerk is much more than that,” Stern explains. He has been clerking for Judge Koh, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, since 2024. “It’s an incredible opportunity to learn from more experienced lawyers and judges.”

And it’s a chance to put his values of fairness, empathy and reason into action in an impactful way every day.

A Day on the Ninth Circuit

The best analogy for a clerkship Stern can think of is a medical residency. Just as med students cap off their schooling with a residency where they gain on-the-job experience, attorneys apply for clerkships while they are still in law school. After graduation, many, like Stern, work for a law firm for a few years, then pause to clerk for a year or more.

“The judge mentors the clerk, and in turn, you help them with their work and get to see behind the curtain and learn what it’s like to be a judge,” he says “This helps you to do your job better as a lawyer.”

Stern’s daily work with Judge Koh is writing-heavy. He spends his time helping to craft opinions, summarizing cases and their arguments, and writing memos explaining the reasoning behind judicial decisions on wide-reaching topics, such as immigration, civil rights and commercial disputes.

Memo writing can be challenging. As a clerk, Stern pushes himself to consider each case carefully, examine the decision-making and ask: “What is right?”

“Noah is simply brilliant,” says Judge Koh. “He is a deep thinker and avid reader with capacious intellectual curiosity. His meticulous research and analysis, sharp and nuanced thinking, and eloquent writing make him stand out even among the best lawyers.”

The Human Side of the Law

Stern’s clerkship with Judge Koh is not his first. After graduating from New York University (NYU) Law in 2019 and working as an Associate at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, he clerked for the Honorable Judge Jed S. Rakoff in New York City’s District Court—an opportunity he applied for five years in advance.

Rakoff has been a vocal critic of the criminal justice system for decades and is known to sentence fairly but with lenience. Stern got to work alongside him on criminal trials and watch the justice system play out live.

“The rubber really meets the road when you’re sitting 20 feet from someone watching them get sentenced to 10 or 20 years in prison,” he says.

Stern realized how hard it would be to sit in the judge’s seat and be responsible for handing out life-altering sentences. He was left changed by the experience.

“Going in, it was easy to say that I opposed heavier sentences, but most of the crimes we saw were pretty heinous …. People’s lives were ruined,” he says. “To sentence, you have to accept that it is both difficult and necessary, and someone has to do it. You have to do your best to be fair and consider all the factors.”

In contrast, Judge Koh’s Court of Appeals can feel more detached because the parties don’t appear in court. Going into the experience, colleagues described it to Stern as monastic.

“It’s nice that I had the district court experience first because it helps me to remember that there are people on the other end of all these decisions,” he says.

The Skills to Succeed

At Whitman College, Stern majored in Economics, a degree he says prepared him well for law school and its demanding legal reasoning.

“The law is applied humanities,” he says. “So much of my job is writing and thinking through problems in an analytical way. These problems aren’t scientific—they are more abstract and more human than that.”

Along the way, he found his people through Whitman Debate and his fraternity, Tau Kappa Epsilon—and spent some of the best spring afternoons of his life meeting up on Ankeny Field, he says.

Although given his passion for debate, he guessed that law school might be in his future, Stern wasn’t sure until his junior year. Even after getting accepted to NYU Law, he doubted his abilities.

“There was a lot of uncertainty about whether I’d be able to do this, to keep up,” He says. “I’m dyslexic, and for my whole life, reading has not been my strength.” But Stern learned to use technology to thrive, listening to recordings of his textbooks to take in information. He’s continued that practice today and typically listens to case files rather than reading them.

As an auditory learner, he says, his listening skills are heightened. That has ultimately served him well in the legal profession, helping him listen intently to clients and come to understand perspectives that might be very different from his own.

“I am so grateful for the privilege of working with Noah and excited to see how he will continue to contribute to the development of the law and the advancement of justice,” says Judge Koh.