Beyond principals and agents - Seeing courts as organizations by comparingreferendaires at the European Court of Justice and law clerks at the US Supreme Court

Scholars have long recognized the importance of the European Court of Justi ce (ECJ) as an active court and an engine of European integration. Few, how ever, have peered inside the black box of the institution to look at the in dividuals who do the work or to analyze the ECJ as an organization. Law cle rks at the ECT, called referendaires, are drawn from the ranks of lawyers, legal academics, legal administrators, and judges. They provide valuable le gal and linguistic expertise, ease the workload of their members, participa te in oral and written interactions between cabinets, and provide continuit y as members rapidly change. Although they have more power than their count erparts in the United States Supreme Court, they are not the puppeteers of the members, but their agents. Focusing on the purported unchecked power of clerks distracts us from examining the important institutional consequence s of changes in workload or an expansion of members.