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Come embrace your inner child when you listen now to Shorewave from NPR.

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Susan Davis.

I cover politics.

And today on the pod, we have something special.

Our colleague Carrie Johnson, who's NPR's justice correspondent, has been working for almost a year on a story about a subject we rarely hear about. What happens inside the chambers of a federal judge, especially when it comes to the way judges treat their clerks, who are young, vulnerable, and as Carrie found out, terrified of ever reporting any wrongdoing.

And just a warning, this piece contains a description of sexual assault. Carrie takes it from here.

In 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic began to shut things down, a recent law school graduate started a new

job all the way across the country in Alaska.

She accepted a coveted post as a law clerk for a federal judge.

It's kind of like a unicorn.

It's a position that follows you for the rest of your life.

It's on the top of your resume.

It's, you know, people pay attention to it, especially a federal court clerkship.

The clerk hoped this job would jumpstart her career.

She didn't know anyone else there, only the judge.

The judge was the HR department.

The judge was my boss.

The judge was a colleague.

...