U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. has taken the unusual step of hiring a veteran lawyer, a top aide to former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, as a law clerk.

Justice Alito’s new hire, Adam Ciongoli, 37, was a counselor to Mr. Ashcroft and helped develop the Bush administration’s legal response to the September 11 terrorist attacks. Mr. Ciongoli, an attorney at Time Warner Incorporated, served as a clerk for Justice Alito on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals a decade ago. Most clerks are younger, recent law school graduates with little if any experience in policymaking positions. “It might raise some eyebrows,” said Todd Peppers, author of a forthcoming book on Supreme Court clerks called “Courtiers of the Marble Palace” and an assistant professor of political science at Roanoke College in Virginia. ” I can think of no other example in the modern history of the court of someone with this type of experience coming on and being a law clerk.”

Justice Alito, 55, was sworn in as America’s 110th Supreme Court justice on January 31. He was confirmed by the Senate on a mostly party-line 58-42 vote, with Democrats expressing concern that he wouldn’t be a check on President Bush’s expansion of executive power in the war on terrorism.

An Alito clerk in 1995 and 1996, Mr. Ciongoli played a central role in the Bush administration’s push to get his former boss confirmed to the high court, appearing frequently on television and quoted in the print media. His father, A. Kenneth Ciongoli, a Vermont neurologist, also rallied support for the nomination in his role as chairman of the National Italian American Foundation.

Before serving as Mr. Ashcroft’s chief legal adviser from 2001 to 2003, Adam Ciongoli worked for the former senator on Capitol Hill, as chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the Constitution. Mr. Ciongoli began his career in private practice at the Kirkland & Ellis law firm in Washington. He had a perfect score on the Law School Admission Test, according to Joseph Del Raso, a longtime family friend and attorney in Philadelphia.

Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Justice Alito wouldn’t comment on Mr. Ciongoli’s hiring.

Mr. Ciongoli, who didn’t return calls and an e-mail message requesting comment, is quitting his job as senior vice president and general counsel of Time Warner Europe today, general counsel of Time Warner, Paul Cappuccio, said.

“What I told Adam was, at the end of the day, not only is it public service, not only is it helping out a friend, this is really the one job you can’t pass up,” said Mr. Cappuccio, who clerked for two Supreme Court justices, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy.