Glossary
Judicial Law Clerk Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential judicial law clerk terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key judicial law clerk vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in judicial law clerk training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Affirm
- Uphold a decision.
- Bench memo
- Memo preparing a judge.
- Bluebook
- Citation guide.
- Chambers
- Judge’s office.
- Clerkship
- Working for a judge.
- Dissent
- Disagreeing opinion.
- Docket
- List of cases.
- Opinion
- Court’s written decision.
- Oral argument
- Lawyers argue before judges.
- Per curiam
- Unsigned court opinion.
- Record
- Documents from the case.
- Remand
- Send back to a lower court.
- Reverse
- Overturn a decision.
- Standard of review
- How an appeals court reviews.
- Term clerk
- Clerk for a set term.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Judicial Law Clerk practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Judicial Law Clerk training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.