Behind the Vows: How Erin Morrow Hawley and Josh Built D. C.'s Ultimate Legal Power Couple
By Alexander Ross
The path that culminated in the 2010 Hawley wedding began in New Haven and crystallized at the highest court in the nation. Erin Morrow arrived at Yale Law School from a rural cattle ranch in Wyoming, bringing an agrarian discipline that quickly propelled her to the upper echelons of the Yale Law Journal. Josh Hawley, an alumnus of Stanford University, arrived in New Haven around the same period, sharing an interest in constitutional originalism and religious freedom.
Both built sterling early records under heavyweight appellate judges. Josh Hawley clerked for Judge Michael W. McConnell on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, soaking in McConnell’s scholarly approach to the Establishment Clause. Erin Morrow clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III on the Fourth Circuit, a jurist celebrated for judicial restraint and sharp prose.
Their paths formally converged during the 2007, 2008 term at the Supreme Court of the United States. Both served as law clerks to Chief Justice John Roberts. Working side by side in the Chief Justice’s chambers, vetting certiorari petitions, drafting bench memos, and debating statutory interpretation, the pair formed an intellectual bond that quickly turned personal. Observers inside the building remembered two clerks whose analytical abilities rivaled any in their cohort, bound by a shared ideological framework that viewed the federal judiciary as an instrument requiring structural constitutional realignment.
Alexander Ross has covered the video game industry for a decade, writing deep dives on game design, esports tournaments, VR developments, and gaming culture.
