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Anonymous User wrote:What about federal clerks who DID NOT work in biglaw their 2L summer? Do you think that once they finish their clerkship they would have a shot at biglaw? Or, is it the general rule that in order to do biglaw (even if you are a federal clerk) you MUST have clerked your 2L summer with that respective firm or another firm on the same "prestige level"?

Younger Abstention wrote:For district court clerks, this is far less common from what I understand.

G. T. L. Rev. wrote:

glitched wrote:Will clerking help you land a biglaw job at a top top firm? And if biglaw is your goal, is it even a good idea to spend time clerking or would it be better to hit the ground running right out of law school? Or is it that if you could get a clerking gig in the first place, you probably could get a biglaw job anyway? I'm just trying to learn more about all of this.

Thanks!

"[f]or those who want biglaw and [didn't] get it [as 2Ls], clerkships are rarely a back door. It happens sometimes, but . . . if you didn't have the credentials to get biglaw at 2L OCI, you probably don't have the ammo to get a clerkship that will make firms change their minds."

G. T. L. Rev. wrote:

glitched wrote:Will clerking help you land a biglaw job at a top top firm? And if biglaw is your goal, is it even a good idea to spend time clerking or would it be better to hit the ground running right out of law school? Or is it that if you could get a clerking gig in the first place, you probably could get a biglaw job anyway? I'm just trying to learn more about all of this.

Thanks!

This post misunderstands how biglaw and clerkship hiring operates. One gets (or doesn't get) a biglaw job through a summer associate (SA) program. The hiring for that is done at the beginning of 2L year, and offers for full-time, post-grad employment at the firms are made at the conclusion of the 2L summer. Clerkship hiring traditionally occurs during, or, more often, immediately after 2L summer. Some clerkship hiring occurs even later, for judges who prefer clerks with post-LS experience.

Thus, for the most part, firms never know whether you are clerking before they decide to hire you. There are a few very narrow exceptions, such as when firms try to hire clerks who did not work for them as SAs. As a poster above mentioned, this happens most frequently at the CoA level, although it does happen among district court and state supreme court clerks too. The thing is--and this is the key part--most of the people hired this way already had biglaw gigs. They're just changing where they will be working within biglaw. As has been said elsewhere before, "[f]or those who want biglaw and [didn't] get it [as 2Ls], clerkships are rarely a back door. It happens sometimes, but . . . if you didn't have the credentials to get biglaw at 2L OCI, you probably don't have the ammo to get a clerkship that will make firms change their minds." So, while it might suck to do a district court clerkship and not have biglaw as an option at the tail end, the truth is that if you didn't have biglaw going in, odds are you won't going out either.

A'nold wrote:

G. T. L. Rev. wrote:

glitched wrote:Will clerking help you land a biglaw job at a top top firm? And if biglaw is your goal, is it even a good idea to spend time clerking or would it be better to hit the ground running right out of law school? Or is it that if you could get a clerking gig in the first place, you probably could get a biglaw job anyway? I'm just trying to learn more about all of this.

Thanks!

This post misunderstands how biglaw and clerkship hiring operates. One gets (or doesn't get) a biglaw job through a summer associate (SA) program. The hiring for that is done at the beginning of 2L year, and offers for full-time, post-grad employment at the firms are made at the conclusion of the 2L summer. Clerkship hiring traditionally occurs during, or, more often, immediately after 2L summer. Some clerkship hiring occurs even later, for judges who prefer clerks with post-LS experience.

Thus, for the most part, firms never know whether you are clerking before they decide to hire you. There are a few very narrow exceptions, such as when firms try to hire clerks who did not work for them as SAs. As a poster above mentioned, this happens most frequently at the CoA level, although it does happen among district court and state supreme court clerks too. The thing is--and this is the key part--most of the people hired this way already had biglaw gigs. They're just changing where they will be working within biglaw. As has been said elsewhere before, "[f]or those who want biglaw and [didn't] get it [as 2Ls], clerkships are rarely a back door. It happens sometimes, but . . . if you didn't have the credentials to get biglaw at 2L OCI, you probably don't have the ammo to get a clerkship that will make firms change their minds." So, while it might suck to do a district court clerkship and not have biglaw as an option at the tail end, the truth is that if you didn't have biglaw going in, odds are you won't going out either.

Yes, but what about the people that DID have the numbers (easily) to get biglaw but did not participate in 2L OCI, thus never getting the chance to even apply to these firms?

What if you are the #1 student at, say, Notre Dame, are on LR, etc. but did not participate in OCI? This student can likely get a federal clerkship.

A'nold wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:What about federal clerks who DID NOT work in biglaw their 2L summer? Do you think that once they finish their clerkship they would have a shot at biglaw? Or, is it the general rule that in order to do biglaw (even if you are a federal clerk) you MUST have clerked your 2L summer with that respective firm or another firm on the same "prestige level"?

This is the question I keep asking......

G. T. L. Rev. wrote:

glitched wrote:Will clerking help you land a biglaw job at a top top firm? And if biglaw is your goal, is it even a good idea to spend time clerking or would it be better to hit the ground running right out of law school? Or is it that if you could get a clerking gig in the first place, you probably could get a biglaw job anyway? I'm just trying to learn more about all of this.

Thanks!

This post misunderstands how biglaw and clerkship hiring operates. One gets (or doesn't get) a biglaw job through a summer associate (SA) program. The hiring for that is done at the beginning of 2L year, and offers for full-time, post-grad employment at the firms are made at the conclusion of the 2L summer. Clerkship hiring traditionally occurs during, or, more often, immediately after 2L summer. Some clerkship hiring occurs even later, for judges who prefer clerks with post-LS experience.

Thus, for the most part, firms never know whether you are clerking before they decide to hire you. There are a few very narrow exceptions, such as when firms try to hire clerks who did not work for them as SAs. As a poster above mentioned, this happens most frequently at the CoA level, although it does happen among district court and state supreme court clerks too. The thing is--and this is the key part--most of the people hired this way already had biglaw gigs. They're just changing where they will be working within biglaw. As has been said elsewhere before, "[f]or those who want biglaw and [didn't] get it [as 2Ls], clerkships are rarely a back door. It happens sometimes, but . . . if you didn't have the credentials to get biglaw at 2L OCI, you probably don't have the ammo to get a clerkship that will make firms change their minds." So, while it might suck to do a district court clerkship and not have biglaw as an option at the tail end, the truth is that if you didn't have biglaw going in, odds are you won't going out either.