Re: Leaving Clerkship early Forum

[Anonymous User]

Not going to give too many details, but have a two year clerkship in the opposite side of the map where I will be practicing. Accepted the offer with every intention of doing it (I even broke up with a gf over this). during that one year gap between my acceptance and my start date, some family health issue occured. But I was sure I can juggle it for two years while leaving the family behind. Started the clerkship about 5 months ago and I absolutely love the job and the judge and I make sure to work very hard because I am greatful for the opportunity. However, the family health issue escalated requiring for additional funds and this has worried me significantly. I am nervous, and there is a very good likely, that I will be unable to provide for this family member treatment if it escalates further. I am willing to wait it out until a year from now as my family can scrape by for that long, but 2 years from now might be too much to ask from my family. So now I am thinking about talking to my judge to reduce my clerkship term to 1 year i.e. ending in 7 mnths.

My question is 1) how bad is this? 2) am I reaosnable to ask? and 3) how should I go abou it if I do?

[legalese_retard]

Not going to give too many details, but have a two year clerkship in the opposite side of the map where I will be practicing. Accepted the offer with every intention of doing it (I even broke up with a gf over this). during that one year gap between my acceptance and my start date, some family health issue occured. But I was sure I can juggle it for two years while leaving the family behind. Started the clerkship about 5 months ago and I absolutely love the job and the judge and I make sure to work very hard because I am greatful for the opportunity. However, the family health issue escalated requiring for additional funds and this has worried me significantly. I am nervous, and there is a very good likely, that I will be unable to provide for this family member treatment if it escalates further. I am willing to wait it out until a year from now as my family can scrape by for that long, but 2 years from now might be too much to ask from my family. So now I am thinking about talking to my judge to reduce my clerkship term to 1 year i.e. ending in 7 mnths.

My question is 1) how bad is this? 2) am I reaosnable to ask? and 3) how should I go abou it if I do?

Sorry about your misfortune. Most judges are humans and have human emotions, so you should be upfront with him or her with this info. Law clerks leave their clerkships early for much less "dramatic" reasons. The law clerk I replaced left a year early because of a great job offer. The judge was fine with it because he knew how bad the job market was. I'm sure there are unreasonable judges out there, but I can't imagine anyone getting too upset given your circumstances.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I agree with the above. Hope things get better for your family.

[Tanicius]

First time I opened this thread, I didn't read far enough and assumed you were just unhappy. Didn't bother to be one of the people here to tell you to suck it up.

Now I'm reading it again, and... Yeah, on the list of reasons where a judge should absolutely not get pissed about your leaving early, this one is pretty high. I can't imagine this would cause employment trouble down the road for you as long as you articulate each time that the reason you had to do this was because of a medical emergency. The only people who would conceivably hold this against you are people you absolutely do not want to be working for.

[lolwat]

1. It's fine.
2. Yep.
3. Ask the judge for a few minutes to talk and tell him/her what's happening.

Since you've been there for 5 months and like the judge you're working for, I doubt there will be any issues with this.