Native Hawaiian to be US Supreme Court justice’s law clerk

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HONOLULU (AP) — A lawyer from Hawaii will become the first person of Native Hawaiian ancestry to serve as a law clerk for a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

HONOLULU (AP) — A lawyer from Hawaii will become the first person of Native Hawaiian ancestry to serve as a law clerk for a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

The University of Hawaii law school announced Monday Justice Sonia Sotomayor has selected Kamaile Turcan to be her clerk this summer.

The law school says this is the first time one of its graduates has been invited to be a Supreme Court justice’s clerk.

Turcan is a 1998 graduate and valedictorian of Kamehameha Schools’ Kapalama campus. She earned a bachelor’s degree in integrative biology from University of California, Berkeley in 2001.

She’s currently an attorney for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

As a clerk, Turcan’s duties will include helping Sotomayor prepare for oral arguments and helping justices decide emergency applications to the court.