Writing Sample: Full Length (23 pp) with "recommended" pp? Forum

(Seek and share information about clerkship applications, clerkship hiring timelines, and post-clerkship employment opportunities)
Forum rules
Anonymous Posting

Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are sharing sensitive information about clerkship applications and clerkship hiring. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.

Failure to follow these rules will get you outed, warned, or banned."
Anonymous User
Posts: 428486
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am

Writing Sample: Full Length (23 pp) with "recommended" pp?

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Mar 02, 2014 9:26 pm

Anonymous because I've discussed this issue openly with classmates and would prefer to keep my handle private.

In a UT forum on clerkships, a group of judges (Cir, Dist, and SSC) generally agreed that they prefer the entire writing sample over an excerpt, within reason. My entire sample would be 23 pages if I don't excerpt it. Further, not excerpting it means I can provide just one or two short sentences of context on the cover page, rather than a lengthy cover page of the sort the judges also agreed they would not want to read.

So here's my question: Would it be appropriate to provide an entire writing sample and then on the (now very concise) cover page say "Should you desire a shorter writing sample, I recommend section II, '[title of section],' beginning at the top of page 8 and concluding on page 16"?

[ETA: I have confidence in the quality of the entire writing sample, so I would not be worried about judges (or clerks) saying "well in that case I'll read pp. 17-23." The section I recommend, which I've used before as my excerpt, happens to be the one that least requires the reader to have the context of the entire document.]


Return to “Judicial Clerkships”