From today's New York Times: "Everyone knows that with the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the number of female Supreme Court justices fell by half. The talk of the court this summer, with the arrival of the new crop of law clerks, is that the number of female clerks has fallen even more sharply."

Among 37 Supreme Court clerks for the new term, only seven are women. That's the first time since 1994 that the total has dipped below 10.

Wait, but weren't we just hearing that more and more women are graduating from law school? Yep: In 2005, they made up almost half the class. Back in 1994, the overall pool was actually much smaller.

What's going on, and how much does it matter? Justices Breyer and Souter (both generally female friendly in their clerk hires, like Justice Ginsburg) pointed to, as the Times paraphrased, "random variation in the applicant pool." According to Souter, the pool is rarely more than one-third women to begin with. Other justices say they simply hire the best applicants (some of whom, of course, have worked for them before), and sometimes it just shakes down this way.

Law-related blogs, evidently ablaze with speculation this summer, also cited (again, Times paraphrase) "the relative scarcity of female students among the top editors of the leading law schools' law reviews -- an important preclerkship credential -- and the absence of women among the 'feeder judges,' the dozen or so federal appeals court judges who, year in and year out, offer a reliable pipeline to the Supreme Court for their own favored law clerks." Some suggested that Justice Scalia, whose record is 2/28 for the last seven years, can't find sufficient numbers of women who are conservative enough for him. (How hard is he looking?)