Clerk job hunting thread 2012/2013 Forum

[nevdash]

I'm hoping the lack of updates on here mean things are working out. Clerkship ends this August and still nothing on my end. Not sure what else I can do besides scanning job board websites and applying. So much for the clerkship boost on the resume.

Sorry to hear that, man. Are you still restricting yourself to DC, or have you broadened your search at all?

Never went for DC. I'm in Texas and that has been my focus - Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio

Oh, sorry dude. Must have confused you for another poster. Are you clerking in TX?

[legalese_retard]

I'm hoping the lack of updates on here mean things are working out. Clerkship ends this August and still nothing on my end. Not sure what else I can do besides scanning job board websites and applying. So much for the clerkship boost on the resume.

Sorry to hear that, man. Are you still restricting yourself to DC, or have you broadened your search at all?

Never went for DC. I'm in Texas and that has been my focus - Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio

Oh, sorry dude. Must have confused you for another poster. Are you clerking in TX?

No problem. Yeah until August.

[lolwat]

I'm hoping the lack of updates on here mean things are working out.

Nope.

Clerkship ends this August and still nothing on my end. Not sure what else I can do besides scanning job board websites and applying. So much for the clerkship boost on the resume.

Yep. I'm tired of it, really. The job hunting thing.

[insideman]

certainly gets frustrating at times. I have found when networking/cold calling that its not so much a lack of interest in me as it is a lack of openings available, which will hopefully change. My circumstances are a little different though, as an alum clerk.

[Anonymous User]

certainly gets frustrating at times. I have found when networking/cold calling that its not so much a lack of interest in me as it is a lack of openings available, which will hopefully change. My circumstances are a little different though, as an alum clerk.

This was my experience. I even got calls out of the blue from hiring partners who someone forwarded my resume to to tell me that although they don't have any openings, I have an awesome resume so don't get down on myself. (I didn't, and I ended up with a good job.)

[insideman]

certainly gets frustrating at times. I have found when networking/cold calling that its not so much a lack of interest in me as it is a lack of openings available, which will hopefully change. My circumstances are a little different though, as an alum clerk.

This was my experience. I even got calls out of the blue from hiring partners who someone forwarded my resume to to tell me that although they don't have any openings, I have an awesome resume so don't get down on myself. (I didn't, and I ended up with a good job.)

Appreciate the words of wisdom.

[legalese_retard]

certainly gets frustrating at times. I have found when networking/cold calling that its not so much a lack of interest in me as it is a lack of openings available, which will hopefully change. My circumstances are a little different though, as an alum clerk.

Yeah I am an alum clerk too, but my experience prior to my clerkship isn't anything firms are looking for.

[Anonymous User]

I know this is premature, but I read this entire thread and now I can't stop thinking about how I'm going to be unemployed post-clerkship.

I'm nearing the end of year 1 of my 2-year district court clerkship in large east coast city (think Philly/Boston). My clerkship will end in September 2014 (possibly August, not sure yet). I graduated roughly top 1/3 at Chicago/Columbia. My clerkship is in my hometown and I would like to stay here. No journal. I summered at a non-vault ranked but large firm and along with 1/3 of my class got no-offered.

Will it be possible to find a good job at a large firm in my current city? I obviously have ties here and my clerkship is here, so I've been assuming it would be fairly easy to find something. But this thread and the economy generally are making me nervous. Is the no-offer going to be a huge issue? I feel like it's this big, black mark on my resume that will never go away no matter how much experience I have post-law school.

[lolwat]

You should be fine . . . you went from LS directly to clerking, right? So no one knows if you really got an offer or not, you might just be looking to join a different firm for one of many reasons. A lot of people do 2L SA somewhere, clerk after law school, and join a different firm post-clerkship. Nothing new there.

I went from 0 job leads in May to like 4 and a half (kinda) leads this month. I'm tentatively hopeful.

[Anonymous User]

This is anon from above. Yes, I went straight from LS to clerkship. I guess I'm worried that I will be asked directly at interviews whether I got an offer (this happened when I was doing 3L OCI and it was like an instant blacklisting effect). I'm okay with not bringing it up, but I'm less okay with lying about it if asked directly. I don't even think they'd have a way of checking to see if I got an offer, but still, it would make me uneasy to say I did. I SA'd in the city where my LS is located, which is a different city than my hometown/clerkship, so if they don't ask directly I think you're right they'll just assume I changed cities, no big deal. Just worried about getting asked up front.

[Myself]

.

[Anonymous User]

I clerked after getting no-offered my 2L summer, and FWIW you're right to plan for being asked about it, because I was asked about my no-offer in every single subsequent interview. I ended up with a job, so obviously it's not an impossible question to field, but it takes some planning and a touch of finesse.

One thing I've seen said on TLS that I think is a good idea is to list your job title on your resume as "summer clerk" instead of "summer associate" unless for some reason this would be an outright lie. The term "summer clerk" seems to be a favorite for firms that don't routinely make offers to their summers.

I was lucky, because I applied to a specific practice group and my 2L firm doesn't have that group, so for me the explanation for why I wanted to work elsewhere was pretty straightforward. I think how you answer the question depends on why you were no offered, but for the most part just stay positive, say nice things about that firm, and then change the subject as quickly as you can.

[Anonymous User]

What about for those of us who struck out at OCI, but landed a good clerkship that sends people to top firms? I'm kind of concerned about meeting the 1L grade cutoffs (I was honors 2L and 3L) and if the firms still care about no-offers they'll likely care about striking out too.

[nevdash]

What about for those of us who struck out at OCI, but landed a good clerkship that sends people to top firms? I'm kind of concerned about meeting the 1L grade cutoffs (I was honors 2L and 3L) and if the firms still care about no-offers they'll likely care about striking out too.

Do firms really have 1L grade cutoffs when hiring former clerks? Your class rank is your class rank; even if you were median 1L year and then worked your ass off to make top 15% at graduation, you still had to outperform 85% of your class. Did you take all seminars and fluff classes 2L and 3L, or did you take stuff like Evidence, Fed Courts, Admin?

A no-offer seems much different than striking out to me since a no-offer is likely because of bad work product or something else negative. Striking out could mean that you bid too ambitiously, you didn't click with any of your interviewers, etc. (and they don't even know for sure that you actually struck out unless you tell them; maybe you didn't gun for biglaw).

At least that's the way I see it. But maybe I'm just being optimistic since I'm in the same boat (top 25-33% 1L, no 2L SA --> top 10% graduation).

[Anonymous User]

What about for those of us who struck out at OCI, but landed a good clerkship that sends people to top firms? I'm kind of concerned about meeting the 1L grade cutoffs (I was honors 2L and 3L) and if the firms still care about no-offers they'll likely care about striking out too.

Do firms really have 1L grade cutoffs when hiring former clerks? Your class rank is your class rank; even if you were median 1L year and then worked your ass off to make top 15% at graduation, you still had to outperform 85% of your class. Did you take all seminars and fluff classes 2L and 3L, or did you take stuff like Evidence, Fed Courts, Admin?

A no-offer seems much different than striking out to me since a no-offer is likely because of bad work product or something else negative. Striking out could mean that you bid too ambitiously, you didn't click with any of your interviewers, etc. (and they don't even know for sure that you actually struck out unless you tell them; maybe you didn't gun for biglaw).

At least that's the way I see it. But maybe I'm just being optimistic since I'm in the same boat (top 25-33% 1L, no 2L SA --> top 10% graduation).

My GPA was inflated by the presence of a lot of clinical and other credits. I took a few large lecture courses but finished in the middle of the pack in those classes, so anyone who digs too deeply into my transcript is going to quickly realize that I didn't do well comparatively. I really hated typical law school classes and it shows, but I like working as a lawyer and I like my appellate clerkship (go figure).

My grades weren't poor enough to keep me from getting an offer, bidding, lack of WE, so-so interviewing contributed.

If all they need is "Honors" to put on the website I'm golden. I read in a lot of threads about grades mattering for lateral transfers five or more years out. And these guys are notorious prestige whores. I would hope my time with the court matters a lot more than my performance in law school classes, but I'm less optimistic than you.

[lolwat]

I went from top 20% 1L year (shitty first semester) to top 5% by the time I graduated, and while I have no idea if 1L grades mattered when I get rejected from firms without an interview, I've literally had zero interviews with firms where they mention anything other than "you did awesome in law school, eee!" if that topic even comes up. This includes an interview with Gibson Dunn which is one of the firms that are notorious for being grade snobs.

All that just to say they don't seem to care only about 1L grades or dig too deeply into your transcript. Ending % and honors seems to matter most.

Not doing a 2L SA is a yellow/red flag, though. I assume that's what you mean -- you didn't do so hot and struck out at OCI (and did a non-firm gig for 2L summer), but you landed at a clerkship based on your grades later on. Most people I've spoken with in a non-interview context have flagged that as one of the "issues" with my resume that make it harder to get a firm to hire me. And I do know that question has been asked in 99% of my interviews, basically "why didn't you summer at a firm?!?!?!" (even if not phrased that way).

I guess on the plus side I personally have the answer of "Oh, it was like 2009, a lot of firms told me they weren't having summer classes and a lot more cut their summer classes by like half." But if you struck out during an okay time then it's harder to explain, but you need to come up with an explanation.

[Anonymous User]

I think grades definitely contributed, although others with my grades and lower received offers. It was in 2010, so not the best year for hiring. People seemed to understand when I went on biglaw interviews as a 3L- although I received no offers so take from that what you will.

That's interesting about GDC though.

[nevdash]

I guess on the plus side I personally have the answer of "Oh, it was like 2009, a lot of firms told me they weren't having summer classes and a lot more cut their summer classes by like half." But if you struck out during an okay time then it's harder to explain, but you need to come up with an explanation.

That's interesting; I'm really glad that that's an acceptable answer. I was afraid I was going to have to come up with some story about how I was gunning for gov and then magically decided in the past couple of years that I loved doc review or something.

[lolwat]

clerkship ending in the near future and still don't have anything yet. shit. had interviews at least.

[legalese_retard]

For those still looking and interested in another clerkship:

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

District Court Judge C. Darnell Jones, II (Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia), is looking for a full-time, term law clerk. The position would require a one-year commitment, commencing in mid- to late September 2013. For this particular opening, Judge Jones would prefer applicants with prior federal clerkship experience. Interested candidates should submit a cover letter, resume, references and a writing sample to Judge Jones’s career clerk, Candee Cintron, at candee_cintron@paed.uscourts.gov.

[Anonymous User]

So is there a general time for clerk hiring or is it all over the place? I'm starting a one year clerkship in Sept. in the city I'd like to work in after I finish clerking.

Also, some good thoughts re: no offers. I had a 2L SA and didn't receive an offer due to fit, though my SA is in a different city than the clerkship so I have a pretty easy way to explain why I'm not going back to that firm.

[theaccidentalclerk]

I think the general rule is that most firms -- but not all -- start looking at clerks in the spring, probably right about April. There are outliers on both ends of that, though.

Personally, I started looking in mid February, pretty much interviewed throughout March, and accepted an offer by early April. But I'm a bit of a special case. (I'm a fairly experienced alum, so I was looking mainly at partnership track and prospects as opposed to walk-in comp.)

[Anonymous User]

I'm a district court clerk in an east coast state. Not in a huge city, but our courthouse is in the state capital, so we get a lot of interesting cases involving the state government in addition to the usual federal court stuff. I'll be done in August 2014.

I just sent out a bunch of applications to the bigger national/regional firms on my list a few days ago (I held off on smaller firms, as my assumption is that they don't hire as far in advance as the big guys), on the advice of my judge and some other clerks who said they started applying around this time last year. So far I haven't heard anything, aside from a few form email "thanks, but we have no open positions at this time"-type messages. Am I applying way too early?

[A. Nony Mouse]

I'm a district court clerk in an east coast state. Not in a huge city, but our courthouse is in the state capital, so we get a lot of interesting cases involving the state government in addition to the usual federal court stuff. I'll be done in August 2014.

I just sent out a bunch of applications to the bigger national/regional firms on my list a few days ago (I held off on smaller firms, as my assumption is that they don't hire as far in advance as the big guys), on the advice of my judge and some other clerks who said they started applying around this time last year. So far I haven't heard anything, aside from a few form email "thanks, but we have no open positions at this time"-type messages. Am I applying way too early?

My understanding is that this is too early, yes. But that's based mostly on conventional wisdom and anecdotes, and for all I know may be less true for the really big firms (given that they're doing 3LOCI now, to the extent that's even a thing), especially if you had specific advice to apply now. Generally, though, I've always heard February-ish.

[Anonymous User]

I'm really hoping that if I got some wonky info and it is too early for the vast majority of firms, they'll just stash my info away and lump it in with the other clerk apps coming in later at whatever might be their preferred time. If not, I guess I could always do a mass re-send of the same thing 5-6 months from now, but it occurs to me that going that route might be a little gauche if they remember that I'd already sent everything before.