Let's Talk 9th Circuit! Forum

[Anonymous User]

I’m wondering what does “quality and depth” even more. Pretty sure “lack quality and depth” is code for “doesn’t have the background I like” because it’s aimed at the 1st and 8th Circuits, where many judges have very different backgrounds and went to a variety of law schools. Or it’s aimed at the geography/caseload, which are also stupid reasons to cast off entire circuits.

Who are we kidding with these infantile “rankings” of circuits? It’s literally the same job everywhere. The only “meaningful” metric is the individual judge you clerk for, and that doesn’t really matter outside of the margins. (Good luck getting SCOTUS.) Outside of those mega-feeders/“preftigious” judges, a federal appellate clerkship is still a federal appellate clerkship. The judges on the panel still have to come to an agreement about mundane sentencing, immigration, and *gasp* commercial litigation appeals. (The latter of which can come from big national firms). And those decisions (and the blockbuster ones) can still be discounted by other circuits who won’t agree with their reasoning for all sorts of reasons, even if the authoring judge is supposed to be impressive.

To discount an entire circuit/a judge/whatever is not only myopic but bizarre, and this is coming from someone who knows how the sausage gets made. Fancy judges can get shouted down by less fancy judges, and those less fancy judges are just as right as often as the fancy judges are. Perhaps it’s just a symptom of how weird and hung up on prestige law students, baby lawyers, and the whole legal profession are, but it’s still an odd view that clashes with how this all is supposed to work.

[Anonymous User]

I'd argue Stras Gruender and Colloton have a lot of cache in the prestige-whore conservative legal circles and that's like 30% of the actives on CA8

[Anonymous User]

I'd argue Stras Gruender and Colloton have a lot of cache in the prestige-whore conservative legal circles and that's like 30% of the actives on CA8

Agree with the above, and the prior poster that CA1 has Barron. To bring this back somewhat back on track...who are the current "heavy hitters" on CA9 who aren't senior status? (However you might define that. Obviously there's feeders/semi-feeders, but I'm also thinking in terms of general "prestige" to a typical BigLaw hiring audience.)

[Anonymous User]

I’m wondering what does “quality and depth” even more. Pretty sure “lack quality and depth” is code for “doesn’t have the background I like” because it’s aimed at the 1st and 8th Circuits, where many judges have very different backgrounds and went to a variety of law schools. Or it’s aimed at the geography/caseload, which are also stupid reasons to cast off entire circuits.

Who are we kidding with these infantile “rankings” of circuits? It’s literally the same job everywhere. The only “meaningful” metric is the individual judge you clerk for, and that doesn’t really matter outside of the margins. (Good luck getting SCOTUS.) Outside of those mega-feeders/“preftigious” judges, a federal appellate clerkship is still a federal appellate clerkship. The judges on the panel still have to come to an agreement about mundane sentencing, immigration, and *gasp* commercial litigation appeals. (The latter of which can come from big national firms). And those decisions (and the blockbuster ones) can still be discounted by other circuits who won’t agree with their reasoning for all sorts of reasons, even if the authoring judge is supposed to be impressive.

To discount an entire circuit/a judge/whatever is not only myopic but bizarre, and this is coming from someone who knows how the sausage gets made. Fancy judges can get shouted down by less fancy judges, and those less fancy judges are just as right as often as the fancy judges are. Perhaps it’s just a symptom of how weird and hung up on prestige law students, baby lawyers, and the whole legal profession are, but it’s still an odd view that clashes with how this all is supposed to work.

There's a lot of space in between "discounting an entire circuit" and "it's literally the same job everywhere." It entirely makes sense that there's a relationship between circuit prestige and the "prestige" or economic importance of the cities within the circuit. Is a district clerkship in SDNY more prestigious than a district clerkship in the district of North Dakota? Yes. Does that mean the latter is useless or should be discounted? No. Not complicated.

[Anonymous User]

I’m wondering what does “quality and depth” even more. Pretty sure “lack quality and depth” is code for “doesn’t have the background I like” because it’s aimed at the 1st and 8th Circuits, where many judges have very different backgrounds and went to a variety of law schools. Or it’s aimed at the geography/caseload, which are also stupid reasons to cast off entire circuits.

Who are we kidding with these infantile “rankings” of circuits? It’s literally the same job everywhere. The only “meaningful” metric is the individual judge you clerk for, and that doesn’t really matter outside of the margins. (Good luck getting SCOTUS.) Outside of those mega-feeders/“preftigious” judges, a federal appellate clerkship is still a federal appellate clerkship. The judges on the panel still have to come to an agreement about mundane sentencing, immigration, and *gasp* commercial litigation appeals. (The latter of which can come from big national firms). And those decisions (and the blockbuster ones) can still be discounted by other circuits who won’t agree with their reasoning for all sorts of reasons, even if the authoring judge is supposed to be impressive.

To discount an entire circuit/a judge/whatever is not only myopic but bizarre, and this is coming from someone who knows how the sausage gets made. Fancy judges can get shouted down by less fancy judges, and those less fancy judges are just as right as often as the fancy judges are. Perhaps it’s just a symptom of how weird and hung up on prestige law students, baby lawyers, and the whole legal profession are, but it’s still an odd view that clashes with how this all is supposed to work.

There's a lot of space in between "discounting an entire circuit" and "it's literally the same job everywhere." It entirely makes sense that there's a relationship between circuit prestige and the "prestige" or economic importance of the cities within the circuit. Is a district clerkship in SDNY more prestigious than a district clerkship in the district of North Dakota? Yes. Does that mean the latter is useless or should be discounted? No. Not complicated.

I don't know because I only clerked on one, but I think this posters point is that clerking as a job is very similar regardless of where you clerked. Maybe even on the district level, although certainly on the circuit level (with exception of D.C. circuit.

[Anonymous User]

I’m wondering what does “quality and depth” even more. Pretty sure “lack quality and depth” is code for “doesn’t have the background I like” because it’s aimed at the 1st and 8th Circuits, where many judges have very different backgrounds and went to a variety of law schools. Or it’s aimed at the geography/caseload, which are also stupid reasons to cast off entire circuits.

Who are we kidding with these infantile “rankings” of circuits? It’s literally the same job everywhere. The only “meaningful” metric is the individual judge you clerk for, and that doesn’t really matter outside of the margins. (Good luck getting SCOTUS.) Outside of those mega-feeders/“preftigious” judges, a federal appellate clerkship is still a federal appellate clerkship. The judges on the panel still have to come to an agreement about mundane sentencing, immigration, and *gasp* commercial litigation appeals. (The latter of which can come from big national firms). And those decisions (and the blockbuster ones) can still be discounted by other circuits who won’t agree with their reasoning for all sorts of reasons, even if the authoring judge is supposed to be impressive.

To discount an entire circuit/a judge/whatever is not only myopic but bizarre, and this is coming from someone who knows how the sausage gets made. Fancy judges can get shouted down by less fancy judges, and those less fancy judges are just as right as often as the fancy judges are. Perhaps it’s just a symptom of how weird and hung up on prestige law students, baby lawyers, and the whole legal profession are, but it’s still an odd view that clashes with how this all is supposed to work.

There's a lot of space in between "discounting an entire circuit" and "it's literally the same job everywhere." It entirely makes sense that there's a relationship between circuit prestige and the "prestige" or economic importance of the cities within the circuit. Is a district clerkship in SDNY more prestigious than a district clerkship in the district of North Dakota? Yes. Does that mean the latter is useless or should be discounted? No. Not complicated.

I don't know because I only clerked on one, but I think this posters point is that clerking as a job is very similar regardless of where you clerked. Maybe even on the district level, although certainly on the circuit level (with exception of D.C. circuit.

There are some differences in docket by circuit (the Second really does have the most commercial lit), but a lot of the biggest day-to-day differences are internal circuit practices (e.g. frequency of publication) with no obvious correlation to prestige. Like the Second and Third Circuit judges write much less than the Seventh Circuit judges due to different publication rates.

District courts have much more docket variation than circuit courts.

[Anonymous User]

To get this back on track a bit, because this is the CA9 forum, "a Ninth Circuit clerkship" is generally valuable over "a circuit clerkship" if your goal is to practice in a western market. Obviously, lots of caveats there--a clerkship for Srinivasan or Thapar or Katsas is going to play anywhere, and yes, someone like that is more valuable if you want to practice in California than a random CA9 judge. But all else being equal, clerking on CA9 is a particularly great play if you want to work on the west coast in the same way CA2 is a particularly great play for NYC or CA7 for Chicago. All are valuable nationwide, but connections do matter, and working in or near your judge's home market and having clerkship experience on the regional circuit your future employers will have most of their cases in do help.

[Anonymous User]

This week, I received two COA clerkship invites from respected judges on the 6th and 9th circuit. I chose the 6th circuit one and I work in DC. This 9th circuit thing is kinda silly. People really pretend as if Idaho or Montana are drawing more impressive people than Nashville…a COA clerkship is a COA clerkship unless your judge is a feeder.

[Anonymous User]

Who are the judges in the ninth with the most idiosyncratic hiring preferences? Specifically, I need to target judges who care less about gpa / law review and more on nontraditional backgrounds and/or compelling narratives

[Anonymous User]

This week, I received two COA clerkship invites from respected judges on the 6th and 9th circuit. I chose the 6th circuit one and I work in DC. This 9th circuit thing is kinda silly. People really pretend as if Idaho or Montana are drawing more impressive people than Nashville…a COA clerkship is a COA clerkship unless your judge is a feeder.

It's really about the judge imo, even among non-feeders. There are a lot of non-feeder judges on the sixth circuit with sterling reputations and great clerkship networks that are better than ninth circuit judges with less sterling reputations and lesser clerkship networks and vice versa. My advice for anyone is go on linkedin and see what the former clerks are doing and do as much research as possible on the individual judges.

[Anonymous User]

This week, I received two COA clerkship invites from respected judges on the 6th and 9th circuit. I chose the 6th circuit one and I work in DC. This 9th circuit thing is kinda silly. People really pretend as if Idaho or Montana are drawing more impressive people than Nashville…a COA clerkship is a COA clerkship unless your judge is a feeder.

It's really about the judge imo, even among non-feeders. There are a lot of non-feeder judges on the sixth circuit with sterling reputations and great clerkship networks that are better than ninth circuit judges with less sterling reputations and lesser clerkship networks and vice versa. My advice for anyone is go on linkedin and see what the former clerks are doing and do as much research as possible on the individual judges.

Realistically, are most candidates even in a position to use this advice? Most people I meet never had multiple offers from COA judges. Most didn’t get more than a single interview. What happened to “a COA clerkship is worth its weigh in gold”? (Full disclosure: I’m currently bitter about my COA clerkship, but I didn’t exactly have multiple offers to choose from, even though I snagged more interviews than I expected.)

[Anonymous User]

This week, I received two COA clerkship invites from respected judges on the 6th and 9th circuit. I chose the 6th circuit one and I work in DC. This 9th circuit thing is kinda silly. People really pretend as if Idaho or Montana are drawing more impressive people than Nashville…a COA clerkship is a COA clerkship unless your judge is a feeder.

It's really about the judge imo, even among non-feeders. There are a lot of non-feeder judges on the sixth circuit with sterling reputations and great clerkship networks that are better than ninth circuit judges with less sterling reputations and lesser clerkship networks and vice versa. My advice for anyone is go on linkedin and see what the former clerks are doing and do as much research as possible on the individual judges.

Realistically, are most candidates even in a position to use this advice? Most people I meet never had multiple offers from COA judges. Most didn’t get more than a single interview. What happened to “a COA clerkship is worth its weigh in gold”? (Full disclosure: I’m currently bitter about my COA clerkship, but I didn’t exactly have multiple offers to choose from, even though I snagged more interviews than I expected.)

Yes for many candidates this is not an option. But if you're a candidate with options I would consider this. There are, however, COAs I wouldn't work for even if it was that or nothing, because I would not be willing to put up with a tyrant for a year.

[Anonymous User]

This week, I received two COA clerkship invites from respected judges on the 6th and 9th circuit. I chose the 6th circuit one and I work in DC. This 9th circuit thing is kinda silly. People really pretend as if Idaho or Montana are drawing more impressive people than Nashville…a COA clerkship is a COA clerkship unless your judge is a feeder.

It's really about the judge imo, even among non-feeders. There are a lot of non-feeder judges on the sixth circuit with sterling reputations and great clerkship networks that are better than ninth circuit judges with less sterling reputations and lesser clerkship networks and vice versa. My advice for anyone is go on linkedin and see what the former clerks are doing and do as much research as possible on the individual judges.

Realistically, are most candidates even in a position to use this advice? Most people I meet never had multiple offers from COA judges. Most didn’t get more than a single interview. What happened to “a COA clerkship is worth its weigh in gold”? (Full disclosure: I’m currently bitter about my COA clerkship, but I didn’t exactly have multiple offers to choose from, even though I snagged more interviews than I expected.)

More helpful in terms of targeting your applications, which not everyone does. I ended up applying to about 20 CoA judges nationally. I didn't have the grades for feeders but was otherwise a strong mid-T14 candidate. I made a list basically on input from my school, past clerks, etc. of people who seemed like good mentors with good networks.

[Anonymous User]

Heard Christen is interviewing…can anyone confirm?

[Anonymous User]

This week, I received two COA clerkship invites from respected judges on the 6th and 9th circuit. I chose the 6th circuit one and I work in DC. This 9th circuit thing is kinda silly. People really pretend as if Idaho or Montana are drawing more impressive people than Nashville…a COA clerkship is a COA clerkship unless your judge is a feeder.

I’m guessing this person got Stranch and Johnstone and chose the former

[Anonymous User]

To avoid outing myself, I picked random cities. But I will say I got two interview invites back to back from these two circuits over the past two weeks.

[Anonymous User]

This week, I received two COA clerkship invites from respected judges on the 6th and 9th circuit. I chose the 6th circuit one and I work in DC. This 9th circuit thing is kinda silly. People really pretend as if Idaho or Montana are drawing more impressive people than Nashville…a COA clerkship is a COA clerkship unless your judge is a feeder.

I’m guessing this person got Stranch and Johnstone and chose the former

Johnstone's fully on-plan, IIRC

Edit: that said, I was offered from the 6th and withdrew from a 9th circuit judge post-interview for a different year afterwards, but that's more because I got bad vibes from the latter. I'm not convinced there's much special about the ninth other than the coast.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know what's up with Wardlaw's hiring? She posted a 2024-2025 spot that she filled within about a week, but her 2025-2026 spot has been sitting around for 3 weeks now

It's possible she's just collecting 3L and alumni applications for that seat now and intends to also collect apps from people applying on Plan before interviewing. But no way to know.

Seconding this, this is my understanding as well

[Anonymous User]

I'd argue Stras Gruender and Colloton have a lot of cache in the prestige-whore conservative legal circles and that's like 30% of the actives on CA8

Agree with the above, and the prior poster that CA1 has Barron. To bring this back somewhat back on track...who are the current "heavy hitters" on CA9 who aren't senior status? (However you might define that. Obviously there's feeders/semi-feeders, but I'm also thinking in terms of general "prestige" to a typical BigLaw hiring audience.)

Ikuta, Friedland, and Bress are probably the three heaviest hitters on CA9 who are not senior. Collins and Owens are also very well-respected, and Bumatay has a lot of credibility in conservative circles, but those are the ones who come to mind. Many of the senior judges (O'Scannlain, Fletcher, Graber, Thomas, McKeown, Bybee, Hurwitz, and potentially others) are also very well-regarded.

[Anonymous User]

I'd argue Stras Gruender and Colloton have a lot of cache in the prestige-whore conservative legal circles and that's like 30% of the actives on CA8

Agree with the above, and the prior poster that CA1 has Barron. To bring this back somewhat back on track...who are the current "heavy hitters" on CA9 who aren't senior status? (However you might define that. Obviously there's feeders/semi-feeders, but I'm also thinking in terms of general "prestige" to a typical BigLaw hiring audience.)

Ikuta, Friedland, and Bress are probably the three heaviest hitters on CA9 who are not senior. Collins and Owens are also very well-respected, and Bumatay has a lot of credibility in conservative circles, but those are the ones who come to mind. Many of the senior judges (O'Scannlain, Fletcher, Graber, Thomas, McKeown, Bybee, Hurwitz, and potentially others) are also very well-regarded.

This is a good list. I’d add Koh as a ‘heavy hitter’ contender and Miller to the ‘very well-respected’ list.

Also, ranking non-feeder judges is a little silly, but most of the other active judges are well-respected in the circuit and nationwide. The only active judges I’d think twice about clerking for are VanDyke (because of his far-right ideology), Bade (lightweight), and Nguyen (not as far-left as VanDyke is far-right, but would still give me pause).

[Anonymous User]

I'd argue Stras Gruender and Colloton have a lot of cache in the prestige-whore conservative legal circles and that's like 30% of the actives on CA8

Agree with the above, and the prior poster that CA1 has Barron. To bring this back somewhat back on track...who are the current "heavy hitters" on CA9 who aren't senior status? (However you might define that. Obviously there's feeders/semi-feeders, but I'm also thinking in terms of general "prestige" to a typical BigLaw hiring audience.)

Ikuta, Friedland, and Bress are probably the three heaviest hitters on CA9 who are not senior. Collins and Owens are also very well-respected, and Bumatay has a lot of credibility in conservative circles, but those are the ones who come to mind. Many of the senior judges (O'Scannlain, Fletcher, Graber, Thomas, McKeown, Bybee, Hurwitz, and potentially others) are also very well-regarded.

This is a good list. I’d add Koh as a ‘heavy hitter’ contender and Miller to the ‘very well-respected’ list.

Also, ranking non-feeder judges is a little silly, but most of the other active judges are well-respected in the circuit and nationwide. The only active judges I’d think twice about clerking for are VanDyke (because of his far-right ideology), Bade (lightweight), and Nguyen (not as far-left as VanDyke is far-right, but would still give me pause).

Out of curiosity, what makes you say Bade is a lightweight?

[Anonymous User]

I'd argue Stras Gruender and Colloton have a lot of cache in the prestige-whore conservative legal circles and that's like 30% of the actives on CA8

Agree with the above, and the prior poster that CA1 has Barron. To bring this back somewhat back on track...who are the current "heavy hitters" on CA9 who aren't senior status? (However you might define that. Obviously there's feeders/semi-feeders, but I'm also thinking in terms of general "prestige" to a typical BigLaw hiring audience.)

Ikuta, Friedland, and Bress are probably the three heaviest hitters on CA9 who are not senior. Collins and Owens are also very well-respected, and Bumatay has a lot of credibility in conservative circles, but those are the ones who come to mind. Many of the senior judges (O'Scannlain, Fletcher, Graber, Thomas, McKeown, Bybee, Hurwitz, and potentially others) are also very well-regarded.

This is a good list. I’d add Koh as a ‘heavy hitter’ contender and Miller to the ‘very well-respected’ list.

Also, ranking non-feeder judges is a little silly, but most of the other active judges are well-respected in the circuit and nationwide. The only active judges I’d think twice about clerking for are VanDyke (because of his far-right ideology), Bade (lightweight), and Nguyen (not as far-left as VanDyke is far-right, but would still give me pause).

Out of curiosity, what makes you say Bade is a lightweight?

I have no insight but I do choose to believe that you are judge bade asking.

[Anonymous User]

I'd argue Stras Gruender and Colloton have a lot of cache in the prestige-whore conservative legal circles and that's like 30% of the actives on CA8

Agree with the above, and the prior poster that CA1 has Barron. To bring this back somewhat back on track...who are the current "heavy hitters" on CA9 who aren't senior status? (However you might define that. Obviously there's feeders/semi-feeders, but I'm also thinking in terms of general "prestige" to a typical BigLaw hiring audience.)

Ikuta, Friedland, and Bress are probably the three heaviest hitters on CA9 who are not senior. Collins and Owens are also very well-respected, and Bumatay has a lot of credibility in conservative circles, but those are the ones who come to mind. Many of the senior judges (O'Scannlain, Fletcher, Graber, Thomas, McKeown, Bybee, Hurwitz, and potentially others) are also very well-regarded.

This is a good list. I’d add Koh as a ‘heavy hitter’ contender and Miller to the ‘very well-respected’ list.

Also, ranking non-feeder judges is a little silly, but most of the other active judges are well-respected in the circuit and nationwide. The only active judges I’d think twice about clerking for are VanDyke (because of his far-right ideology), Bade (lightweight), and Nguyen (not as far-left as VanDyke is far-right, but would still give me pause).

I’m confused by this. Nguyen is pretty close to the center on crim issues…

[Anonymous User]

I'd argue Stras Gruender and Colloton have a lot of cache in the prestige-whore conservative legal circles and that's like 30% of the actives on CA8

Agree with the above, and the prior poster that CA1 has Barron. To bring this back somewhat back on track...who are the current "heavy hitters" on CA9 who aren't senior status? (However you might define that. Obviously there's feeders/semi-feeders, but I'm also thinking in terms of general "prestige" to a typical BigLaw hiring audience.)

Ikuta, Friedland, and Bress are probably the three heaviest hitters on CA9 who are not senior. Collins and Owens are also very well-respected, and Bumatay has a lot of credibility in conservative circles, but those are the ones who come to mind. Many of the senior judges (O'Scannlain, Fletcher, Graber, Thomas, McKeown, Bybee, Hurwitz, and potentially others) are also very well-regarded.

This is a good list. I’d add Koh as a ‘heavy hitter’ contender and Miller to the ‘very well-respected’ list.

Also, ranking non-feeder judges is a little silly, but most of the other active judges are well-respected in the circuit and nationwide. The only active judges I’d think twice about clerking for are VanDyke (because of his far-right ideology), Bade (lightweight), and Nguyen (not as far-left as VanDyke is far-right, but would still give me pause).

I’m confused by this. Nguyen is pretty close to the center on crim issues…

99% sure OP meant another judge...

[Anonymous User]

Yeah that was an odd post. I've never that criticism of Bade's intelligence, and while Nguyen is no conservative, in terms of "far left" CA9 judges, I don't think she'd be one of the first 10 names on the list. She is a perfectly mainstream liberal Dem appointee.