223: Behind the scenes at the UK and US Supreme Courts

Update: 2025-06-30

Description

Poppy Mulligan and Monty Fynn tell Jim Duffy all about their time as Judicial Assistants at the UK Supreme Court and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Counsel.

Poppy is JA to the Court’s Deputy President, Lord Hodge, while Monty has spent the year working for former ‘Treasury Devil’ Lord Sales.

They describe what they have learned about advocacy and about themselves that they will take into their nascent careers at the Bar, while Jim recounts some of his own experience as Judicial Assistant to Lord Reed and Lord Hodge some 12 years ago.

Poppy and Monty recently travelled to America to visit the US Supreme Court and America’s federal political institutions, giving them the chance to compare and contrast their own roles with those opposite numbers in Washington – clerks to the likes of Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Clarence Thomas.

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