Stone bonded with Justice Jackson over a shared admiration for Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman appointed as a federal judge.
Donovan Stone ’20 [a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon] has been selected to clerk for Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson during the Court’s upcoming term beginning in October.
“I am incredibly excited to start the clerkship,” Stone said. “It’s definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and to say that I feel blessed would be an understatement.”
Stone was senior online editor of the Duke Law Journal, a member of the Moot Court Board, and internal vice president of the Black Law Students Association. He volunteered with the Durham City Attorney’s Office and twice led students on spring break trips to work with legal assistance organizations in New Orleans. He won the Dean’s Cup moot court competition in 2020 as well as a student writing award that year for his article Blue v. Durham Public School District and the Campaign for School Equalization in North Carolina, 1 North Carolina Civil Rights Law Review 2 (2021).
During his 3L year Stone served as a judicial extern for Judge James A. Wynn of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and took Current Issues in Constitutional Interpretation, a seminar co-taught by U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito. It was Stone’s last in-person class, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that forced classes to be held remotely for the rest of the semester. He was selected by his classmates to be the JD class speaker and delivered his remarks at the only virtual Convocation Duke Law School has ever held.
Sara Sun Beale, the Charles L. B. Lowndes Distinguished Professor of Law, said Stone “became a star at Duke Law School” and called his writing both brilliant and powerful.
“It was truly a treat to read his papers. He displayed a formidable intellect, and he engaged the material at an extremely high level,” Beale said. “He clearly relished the intellectual engagement, and he voiced his own views with both confidence and eloquence, first in his papers, and later in class discussions.
In writing Stone’s clerkship recommendations, Beale said, “I knew he would be a magnificent clerk for any judge, and even for the justices of the Supreme Court. The only challenge was capturing all of his strengths, and his delightful personality.”
After graduating, Stone clerked for Abdul K. Kallon, who until August 2022 was a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama in Birmingham, and for Judge Carl E. Stewart of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Shreveport, Louisiana. He is currently a litigation associate at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C.
Stone is one of two Duke Law School graduates who will serve as clerks at the Supreme Court this fall. John Macy ’22 will clerk for Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Stone and Macy are the twelfth and thirteenth alumni selected for Supreme Court clerkships since 2010.
