SCOTUS clerk taking questions about federal clerkships

[Anonymous User]

Does OP (or anyone else) know if the Bristow, like DOJ honors generally, is unavailable to those who spent a year at a firm following their COA clerkship?

Yes. DOJ Honors is unavailable to you if you work at a firm for any length of time. You must apply to it the year that you do your clerkship (assuming you go straight from the JD into the clerkship).

I believe this is also true of the Bristow.

[Anonymous User]

OP, for someone who is doing a non-feeder 2/9/DC COA clerkship and then a district court clerkship, but might have a 'reasonable' shot at SCOTUS, would it make sense to do a third clerkship, this time with a feeder, or does that sound too likely to be a waste of time?

[Anonymous User]

Not sure I agree that a lawyer spending a year at a firm would be ineligible. Note the use of "typically"



Qualifications

Applicants must be law school graduates with excellent academic records. They typically come to the fellowship after completion of a one-year judicial clerkship, most frequently with a federal appellate court judge. OSG receives applications from a diverse group of graduates from law schools throughout the United States.

The fellowship has a one-year term that cannot lead directly to employment in the Solicitor General's Office. The salary is established at the GS-12 level.

[Anonymous User]

Admin/moderator

This really deserves a sticky

[bjsesq]

Go to the moderation thread and request a sticky. If you are concerned about outing yourself by posting under your username (which seems off, but k) you should probably pm someone like BK, Nony, or chup.

[chem!]

Sticky applied.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for answering all of these questions. How much does participation in your school's Supreme Court clinic help in the SCOTUS application process?

[Anonymous User]

I'll echo others: your willingness to do this is a godsend in an otherwise opaque process. Thanks again!

[Anonymous User]

I have a hunch that SCOTUS anon was discouraged from further posting due to this thread being stickied. I would vote for un-stickying it. It's a very interesting thread, but it focuses on a single court that is out of reach for most people reading this board. It's not the sort of general, FAQ-like, "the board gets these questions all the time, so let's consolidate for efficiency" type of topic that makes sense for a sticky.

[A. Nony Mouse]

This is OP. I will be available to answer questions today and possibly tomorrow, but I do not know when my next series of responses will be after that. I'm not sure if that will be the end of the thread or not. But I don't warrant replying to anything posted after tomorrow. So if you have any final questions, please go ahead now.

OP posted this last Sunday, so I suspect the sticky doesn't have anything to do with his/her absence. However, OP, if you are around and don't want to post due to the sticky, feel free to PM and I'll change it.

[Anonymous User]

I've seen a lot of posts about professors/deans calling, but I don't think I saw this one answered: how often do circuit judges (at least outside of the top feeders) call a justice to recommend a clerk? Does that kind of thing noticeably help an applicant's odds?

[Anonymous User]

. . . But look me in the proverbial eye and tell me Rader isn't crazy.

What could possibly have led you to say something like this about a judge?

You're insinuating that Judge Rader is either bonkers or worse (acting in bad faith) when making his decisions. Unless you've met him or know something specific, I think it's unfair and offensive to attribute bad faith or craziness to him.

I've met him and spoken to several of his clerks, and there's nothing that would lead me to think that he does anything other than consider his cases intelligently, thoughtfully and in good faith.

[Anonymous User]

. . . But look me in the proverbial eye and tell me Rader isn't crazy.

What could possibly have led you to say something like this about a judge?

You're insinuating that Judge Rader is either bonkers or worse (acting in bad faith) when making his decisions. Unless you've met him or know something specific, I think it's unfair and offensive to attribute bad faith or craziness to him.

I've met him and spoken to several of his clerks, and there's nothing that would lead me to think that he does anything other than consider his cases intelligently, thoughtfully and in good faith.

Are you KIDDING. OP has done nothing but strive to preserve confidentiality. This was simply a joke.

You should be ashamed.

[bjsesq]

. . . But look me in the proverbial eye and tell me Rader isn't crazy.

What could possibly have led you to say something like this about a judge?

You're insinuating that Judge Rader is either bonkers or worse (acting in bad faith) when making his decisions. Unless you've met him or know something specific, I think it's unfair and offensive to attribute bad faith or craziness to him.

I've met him and spoken to several of his clerks, and there's nothing that would lead me to think that he does anything other than consider his cases intelligently, thoughtfully and in good faith.

Humor: how the fuck does it work? Chill out.

[bruinfan10]

How much of a difference does moot court make?

You'll get in everywhere you apply!!!!!1

Now that SCOTUS clerk is almost certainly gone, I just want to point out that DF's trolling literally knows no bounds. I mean, unless you're a SCOTUS aspirant now dooder?

In fairness though, the clerk did break down the key components of a SCOTUS clerkship application by relative weight (school/class rank/institutional support/etc etc) multiple times in this thread, so the original question was pretty awful, but I can say as someone with some experience in the feeder clerkship game that some kind of marquee/recognizable moot court win is a fun little soft for your app--maybe like having some solid publications to your name--but is it along the lines of getting a personal phone rec from Martha Minow?

Let's just say that if you see your moot court win as an appreciable asset at this stage, you're probably not in the game (unless, for example, you had a big name AIII judge on the final panel and they were so impressed by your performance that they offer to make personal calls on your behalf, but I don't think that's what you're talking about).

[Citizen Genet]

Let's just say that if you see your moot court win as an appreciable asset at this stage, you're probably not in the game

+1. It is really easy to over-estimate how shiny your resume is. Once you are in the game and looking at who is around you, you begin to realize how little a lot of things on a resume mean.

It's all about what you know. Then it's all about who you know that knows what you know and who they know.

[Anonymous User]

In other words, would someone like Tribe calling have as much sway on Justices like Scalia, Thomas, Alito or Roberts?

Not the OP, but HLS grad/clerk with personal knowledge. Yes. They all take Tribe's calls and take him seriously. He is known for going to bat for the best students across the ideological spectrum and being transparent about all their qualities. He has placed his RAs and TAs across the court. This is true of many, though not all, top-shelf SCOTUS recommenders. They cherish their status as gatekeepers to the Elect. To become a truly great recommender with maximum power, you need to develop a reputation for having an eye for talent that isn't compromised by ideology.

Look at it this way -- they're law professors. Placing students on the court is a way for them to gain status. Thus, if they think you're a star, their interests are really aligned with yours even if you, they, and the target justice have different philosophies. Plus, clerkship recommendations are the only chance most of them will ever have to change a justice's mind. (To get at the snarky truth, those letters may be the only thing they write that the justices will actually read.)

[Anonymous User]

I'm not sure if OP is coming back, but I second the question about Columbia recommenders. Immensely grateful for this post and all the fascinating information!

[Anonymous User]

I hope OP comes back, but if anyone else qualified to answer these questions can do so I'd love that.

1. I'm going straight in to HLS school from undergrad. I'm worried though that all the people that have taken time off before law school will have all those extra years of accomplishments to brag about when they apply for SCOTUS. Is this a serious disadvantage to me? Generally speaking, if you want SCOTUS is it a good idea to take gap years before law school, and what sort of things should you seek to do in those gap years?

2. A lot has been made of having professors/deans/judges "go to bat for you." Obviously this entails getting said professors/deans/judges to like you, and this entails interacting with them and creating relationships. Some of this I'm sure will happen naturally (i.e. you have a class with said professor and thus naturally form a relationship). But other times it will likely have to be purposeful on one's part. Here's my question-- do Professors/Deans/Judges ever make a concerted effort to block people from getting COA or SCOTUS clerkships? Because if they rarely will do anything BAD to keep you from getting a clerkship, then the risk of approaching/networking with a professor is essentially 0. But if they do often block people then this makes the manner in which you approach and network much more important.

Thank you OP and everyone else for your assistance.

[jd20132013]

Lol.

viewtopic.php?f=34&t=202715

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone know the pay for a 4th yr (job and 2 clerkships) applicant to SCOTUS? Do they pay JS-14 to anyone?

Sorry mods, but this is a bit sensitive to ask and so I posted ANON

[Anonymous User]

How much does personality factor into clerkship consideration?

Are any SCOTUS/Appellate clerks itt URMs? Have any of you clerked with URMs? It's pretty depressing when looking at the demographic breakdowns for SCOTUS/Appellate Clerking. Is this because of a lack of opportunity for URMs or rather a lack of qualifying URM candidates?

Does anyone envision a greater level of diversity (racial, geographic, scholastic, ect.) in the near future?

[Anonymous User]

Yes, I clerked with a URM with a feeder, will keep it at that because of outtability concerns. He was fantastic, and had a resume just like the rest of us.

I will say this, not many URMs tend to make it to the pool of potential feeder clerks at HYS: the combination of grades, LR, and other intangibles. Those URMs in that pool had as good or better outcomes for what is basically a big roll of the dice. But affirmative action is a lot less of a big thing at this level than it is elsewhere in the legal profession.

[Anonymous User]

I think some of it is just demographics - it's a small pool of people in the running for top clerkships, and there aren't a ton of URMs at the top schools (or law schools generally). There are also people who don't want to clerk because they don't want to take the financial hit, and I have no idea if this applies more disproportionately to URMs or not, but it could.

I do think it could get better as the judiciary itself gets more diverse - I know some AA/Hispanic judges who consistently hire URM clerks. Not saying that old white men won't hire URMs, at all, but this goes to your first question - personality does matter in that it's a very personal relationship, and if at the interview the judge doesn't think they'll get along with you, they're not going to hire you. Subconscious bias can play into that in that people tend to be drawn to people who are similar to them.

[Anonymous User]

Word on the street is equal number of book prizes and Ps at SLS is the very edge of plausibility for SCOTUS clerkship. Anyone have any insight into whether that's true? I know it will also depend on other things, but I don't want to start hassling my recommenders for no reason.