Do employers/judges care if you take cupcake classes? Forum

[Anonymous User]

TT student, top 10%, next summer I will be the lone SA in an office of 35-40. About to apply for District Ct. and SSC clerkships.

I'm registered for joke classes next semester. I'll only have one exam and basically have guaranteed A's across the board. I seem to be the only that isn't/hasn't loaded up on admin, biz orgs, fed income tax, federal courts/jurisdiction, etc...

I've seen posts that employers and D Ct. judges don't care what classes you take, but I'm worried since my clerkship odds are already low and I also don't want my transcript to screw me in the job hunt if I get no offered. Am I thinking too hard? Does it matter at all?

EDIT: I should add that I work 20 hours per week at a firm, so I'm worried that my grades would be middling in the tough substantive courses b/c of time restraints + difficult material.

[911 crisis actor]

You mean at like an actual bakery?

[mephistopheles]

there are great lessons to be learned in the kitchen that have direct application to law, such as really getting at the heart of the rule/standard distinction

[GOATlawman]

TCR is to take classes that sound like they are legit but are actually softballs

This means avoiding Animal Law or Law and Morality etc etc etc

But Advanced Securities Reg or International Arbitration which secretly give out 95% As? Hell yea

Also IME the "practical" classes usually give pretty much all As and I've never heard of anyone talk shit about them

[hoos89]

Judges are more likely to care about your course choices than firms. If you're gunning for a federal clerkship (which will be tough from a TT, even given top 10%), you should probably take fed courts and evidence along with some other legitimate classes (crim pro, admin law, trial, etc.). You also have to do well in those classes. If you're concerned about looking for some other firm job if you get no offered, then you should probably focus more on maintaining/improving your GPA (even if it's with somewhat soft classes). You should probably still take classes that are likely to be relevant for the jobs you would be looking for (e.g. employment law).

[Anonymous User]

funny you should mention animal law, it was a seminar, but did require quite a lot of work and a few long legal memos that we had only one week to do each time. Much more "legal" than a few other seminars out there. I actually got a pretty decent writing sample out of the class.

[sparty99]

TT student, top 10%, next summer I will be the lone SA in an office of 35-40. About to apply for District Ct. and SSC clerkships.

I'm registered for joke classes next semester. I'll only have one exam and basically have guaranteed A's across the board. I seem to be the only that isn't/hasn't loaded up on admin, biz orgs, fed income tax, federal courts/jurisdiction, etc...

I've seen posts that employers and D Ct. judges don't care what classes you take, but I'm worried since my clerkship odds are already low and I also don't want my transcript to screw me in the job hunt if I get no offered. Am I thinking too hard? Does it matter at all?

EDIT: I should add that I work 20 hours per week at a firm, so I'm worried that my grades would be middling in the tough substantive courses b/c of time restraints + difficult material.

IT DOES NOT MATTER. DO WHAT YOU WANT. STOP DOING THINGS BECAUSE "EMPLOYERS" SAY YOU SHOULD. IT IS YOUR LIFE. TAKE THOSE CUPCAKES. THEY WILL ONLY CARE ABOUT YOUR GPA/CLASS RANK.

[Anonymous User]

OP here

GOATlawman - that's a fantastic idea. All my classes next semester sound legit even though they don't have finals and give out 50-70% A's. That makes me feel better.

To hoos: i've already taken evidence, crim pro, pre-trial ad, and trial ad, so I think I'm ok. I plan to take admin fall 3L and fed courts/jurisdiction spring 3L. Do you think it matters that they won't be on my transcript when I interview, or is it ok so long as I say I plan to take them and can articulate a reason for waiting until 3L?

Sparty - thanks for putting your advice in all caps. it really made me take it more seriously and not think you're an asshat.

[fats provolone]

You mean at like an actual bakery?

do this OP. call it independent study.

[hoos89]

OP here

GOATlawman - that's a fantastic idea. All my classes next semester sound legit even though they don't have finals and give out 50-70% A's. That makes me feel better.

To hoos: i've already taken evidence, crim pro, pre-trial ad, and trial ad, so I think I'm ok. I plan to take admin fall 3L and fed courts/jurisdiction spring 3L. Do you think it matters that they won't be on my transcript when I interview, or is it ok so long as I say I plan to take them and can articulate a reason for waiting until 3L?

Sparty - thanks for putting your advice in all caps. it really made me take it more seriously and not think you're an asshat.

I don't think putting off Admin/Fed Courts until 3L would be a bad idea, except that taking that class during 3L would be rough. That does have the advantage of letting you wait until you know whether you'll have an offer from your firm before deciding whether to take that class or not, and of putting off any potentially adverse impact on your GPA until later. Some judges may want to see a good grade in Fed Courts, though, so putting it off is probably not without some cost. I think maintaining/improving your GPA during 2L is more important though. And if you get an offer from your firm, it won't really matter as much anyway.

[desertlaw]

Took Animal Law and am still employed. 10/10 would be the meat-eating, speciest 3Lol in that class again.

[Anonymous User]

TCR is to take classes that sound like they are legit but are actually softballs

This means avoiding Animal Law or Law and Morality etc etc etc

But Advanced Securities Reg or International Arbitration which secretly give out 95% As? Hell yea

Also IME the "practical" classes usually give pretty much all As and I've never heard of anyone talk shit about them

TCR.

I took a Securities Regulation Seminar that met 3 times in the entire semester, one of which was to watch Boiler Room and another the prof. brought cookies, talked for 45 minutes then said we should just call it a day. Wrote a 45 page paper, got an A+. He told us on the first day that he would give everyone at least an A as long as we didn't completely blow deadlines and wrote a paper of requisite length and citations.

I also took a class on Alternative Investments that watched two or three movies and didn't have a real final. Only got an A- so was kind of pissed about that but I did almost nothing other for the class other than ramble on about random econ/finance/law type stuff.

OCI Interviewers commented on the Sec. Reg. seminar, said they were impressed and we talked about my paper topic for a little while. I did very little work for that class (although the paper took a while to write).

On the other hand, i've heard that many of the BS sounding classes like Wind Law or Music Law involve a ton of work for a worse grade without any upside on your transcript.

[sparty99]

OP here

GOATlawman - that's a fantastic idea. All my classes next semester sound legit even though they don't have finals and give out 50-70% A's. That makes me feel better.

To hoos: i've already taken evidence, crim pro, pre-trial ad, and trial ad, so I think I'm ok. I plan to take admin fall 3L and fed courts/jurisdiction spring 3L. Do you think it matters that they won't be on my transcript when I interview, or is it ok so long as I say I plan to take them and can articulate a reason for waiting until 3L?

Sparty - thanks for putting your advice in all caps. it really made me take it more seriously and not think you're an asshat.

Hey. You are the chump asking whether employers care about classes that you take. I spent my 3L year abroad in Australia. Did I take one-minute trying to decide whether someone would care? Nope. Sure didn't. So who's the real a**hat ?

[Ron Don Volante]

[Tiago Splitter]

I took a Securities Regulation Seminar that met 3 times in the entire semester, one of which was to watch Boiler Room and another the prof. brought cookies, talked for 45 minutes then said we should just call it a day. Wrote a 45 page paper, got an A+. He told us on the first day that he would give everyone at least an A as long as we didn't completely blow deadlines and wrote a paper of requisite length and citations.

You really showed them you slacker.

[Purplebook]

I took a Securities Regulation Seminar that met 3 times in the entire semester, one of which was to watch Boiler Room and another the prof. brought cookies, talked for 45 minutes then said we should just call it a day. Wrote a 45 page paper, got an A+. He told us on the first day that he would give everyone at least an A as long as we didn't completely blow deadlines and wrote a paper of requisite length and citations.

You really showed them you slacker.

I'd prefer to have a normal class with a final than write a 45 page paper.

[Jchance]

yes only if employers/judges eat cupcakes

[objctnyrhnr]

OP here

GOATlawman - that's a fantastic idea. All my classes next semester sound legit even though they don't have finals and give out 50-70% A's. That makes me feel better.

To hoos: i've already taken evidence, crim pro, pre-trial ad, and trial ad, so I think I'm ok. I plan to take admin fall 3L and fed courts/jurisdiction spring 3L. Do you think it matters that they won't be on my transcript when I interview, or is it ok so long as I say I plan to take them and can articulate a reason for waiting until 3L?

Sparty - thanks for putting your advice in all caps. it really made me take it more seriously and not think you're an asshat.

Hey. You are the chump asking whether employers care about classes that you take. I spent my 3L year abroad in Australia. Did I take one-minute trying to decide whether someone would care? Nope. Sure didn't. So who's the real a**hat ?

I am a fedclerk in a top5ish district. Sparty is right. the rest of you guys are naive and uninformed. take easy classes then use the rest of the time to learn social skills because they are needed to get the job once you are selected for an interview based on prof call-ins and gpa.

[hoos89]

To be fair, you have knowledge of how many judges? One? Maybe you know a little about the hiring practices of a few more in your district? Also did you go to a TT (like OP)? I'm not inclined to believe that your status as a clerk in a top 5ish district makes your opinion the be all end all in this discussion.

[GOATlawman]

I am a fedclerk in a top5ish district. Sparty is right. the rest of you guys are naive and uninformed. take easy classes then use the rest of the time to learn social skills because they are needed to get the job once you are selected for an interview based on prof call-ins and gpa.

you act like these are mutually exclusive.

classes after 1L take approximately 4-6 hours of your 168 hours of the week, if done properly

[Anonymous User]

I am a fedclerk in a top5ish district.

I'm a former DCt/COA law clerk; both clerkships were for courts that always seem to make it onto these "lists" that get taken as canon online (i.e., the proverbial SDNY/DDC/NDCA/CDCA and 2/9/DC.) And from that perspective, I gotta ask: what exactly is a "top 5ish district"? These hierarchies seem to have been born on Greedy Clerks, TLS, the various clerkship messageboards/blogs, etc., and don't actually exist in real life. Partners like that I'm a former law clerk, sure. In terms of where I clerked, the only time anyone remotely cares is if we're working on a case in my former district/circuit ... and then, they only care about whether I can "add value" due to greater knowledge of the court's practices and preferences, not about how "prestigious" the Internets decided the court in question is.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I can't speak to firm employers, but for judges, there are some out there who'll care about courses and go through your transcript carefully, and there are others who won't. So (wrt clerking) it's really up to you how much you want to condition your course choices on pleasing the few/some judges likely to give a crap about what you take.

(I never took fed courts or anything remotely corporate related and neither judge I clerked for cared, because they liked other aspects of my application, though GPA/class rank weren't tip top. But I do hear some judges care.)

In this case sparty's not necessarily wrong, it's just his delivery is remarkable.

[objctnyrhnr]

I am a fedclerk in a top5ish district. Sparty is right. the rest of you guys are naive and uninformed. take easy classes then use the rest of the time to learn social skills because they are needed to get the job once you are selected for an interview based on prof call-ins and gpa.

you act like these are mutually exclusive.

classes after 1L take approximately 4-6 hours of your 168 hours of the week, if done properly

I am responsible for participating in evaluation of both paper applications and interviews...and yes, you would be shocked at how frequently they are mutually exclusive.

And I mean I was also clearly being somewhat facetious. One obviously cannot "study" social skills using a certain amount of hours as if it were actually a class. I was just speaking to the more general fact that it seems that the students who go to better schools and get better grades (at least the ones who apply to the chambers in which I work) also seem to give poor interviews, making clerk hiring somewhat difficult.

[objctnyrhnr]

To be fair, you have knowledge of how many judges? One? Maybe you know a little about the hiring practices of a few more in your district? Also did you go to a TT (like OP)? I'm not inclined to believe that your status as a clerk in a top 5ish district makes your opinion the be all end all in this discussion.

I can speak to a little less than half the judges in my district via talking to them and more frequently their clerks...but no--I did not do an in-depth cross-country analysis from a sample that might be deemed statistically significant. I figured this was implied though because who really can do that?

[objctnyrhnr]

I am a fedclerk in a top5ish district.

I'm a former DCt/COA law clerk; both clerkships were for courts that always seem to make it onto these "lists" that get taken as canon online (i.e., the proverbial SDNY/DDC/NDCA/CDCA and 2/9/DC.) And from that perspective, I gotta ask: what exactly is a "top 5ish district"? These hierarchies seem to have been born on Greedy Clerks, TLS, the various clerkship messageboards/blogs, etc., and don't actually exist in real life. Partners like that I'm a former law clerk, sure. In terms of where I clerked, the only time anyone remotely cares is if we're working on a case in my former district/circuit ... and then, they only care about whether I can "add value" due to greater knowledge of the court's practices and preferences, not about how "prestigious" the Internets decided the court in question is.

wow okay sorry. I guess the "ish" was not sufficient. my district is far from flyover, and the vast majority of clerks in it went to HYSC. happy? call it top10. i don't know/care. i was just trying to say I come from a position of at least some knowledge on this issue.