CD Cal and ND Cal judges Forum

[Anonymous User]

Who are CD Cal and ND Cal judges who are known for being great mentors? Also, is there a difference between CD Cal and ND Cal in terms of prestige? What about the docket?

[Anonymous User]

ND Cal is definitely more prestigious than CD. Their docket has a lot of interesting technology related matters, which span much further than just antitrust, IP, or standard commercial matters.

I would rank district court prestige as: 1a) DDC 1b) SDNY 3) NDCAL 4) EDNY 5) CDCAL. Then the rest. Though I could definitely see some people arguing that SDNY has surpassed DDC.

In general, I think you can assume most judges are good mentors, unless otherwise warned.

[Anonymous User]

Former N.D. Cal. clerk here. What do you mean by a great mentor?

[Anonymous User]

ND Cal is definitely more prestigious than CD. Their docket has a lot of interesting technology related matters, which span much further than just antitrust, IP, or standard commercial matters.

I would rank district court prestige as: 1a) DDC 1b) SDNY 3) NDCAL 4) EDNY 5) CDCAL. Then the rest. Though I could definitely see some people arguing that SDNY has surpassed DDC.

In general, I think you can assume most judges are good mentors, unless otherwise warned.

Former clerk (CoA but not 2/9/DC, for whatever it matters) - I think this is some real 1L energy.

Unless you are gunning for a mega-prestige outcome, generalized "prestige" shouldn't guide your choice. To the extent you are, people will look to the judge far more than the court. Kovner on EDNY is probably more prestigious than the median circuit judge, for example. The SDNY White Plains folks, anecdotally, aren't that "prestigious."

You can't eat prestige, though. I know of many "prestigious" judges who don't really mentor their clerks on the job or look out for them after the fact. I know of several judges whose names don't ring out, particularly, but who invest a lot in their clerks (both during the clerkship and after it).

That goes to the mentorship point; it's definitely not the case that most judges are "good" mentors. This isn't to say they're all horrible bosses (though there are some for sure), but it's a real range, and many judges just don't put a lot of time or energy into their clerks. (And there are good mentors who are shitty bosses in the sense of unrealistic deadlines, poor management skills, etc.)

To that end, you should choose between not NDCA/CDCA but between various judges. If you're overwhelmed with good options in both districts, where do you want to live and practice? All things equal, if you're trying to work in LA, presumably better to clerk in CDCA, but NDCA also a wonderful outcome (and vice-versa for the Bay Area).

[Anonymous User]

ND Cal is definitely more prestigious than CD. Their docket has a lot of interesting technology related matters, which span much further than just antitrust, IP, or standard commercial matters.

I would rank district court prestige as: 1a) DDC 1b) SDNY 3) NDCAL 4) EDNY 5) CDCAL. Then the rest. Though I could definitely see some people arguing that SDNY has surpassed DDC.

In general, I think you can assume most judges are good mentors, unless otherwise warned.

This is unbelievably wrong. Clerks tend to hype up their judges. If clerks are not saying uniformly nice things about a judge that is a red flag. A lot, and I mean a lot of judges are fine people to work for and not terrible bosses, but they also aren't the best mentors.

[Anonymous User]

ND Cal is definitely more prestigious than CD. Their docket has a lot of interesting technology related matters, which span much further than just antitrust, IP, or standard commercial matters.

I would rank district court prestige as: 1a) DDC 1b) SDNY 3) NDCAL 4) EDNY 5) CDCAL. Then the rest. Though I could definitely see some people arguing that SDNY has surpassed DDC.

In general, I think you can assume most judges are good mentors, unless otherwise warned.

This is unbelievably wrong. Clerks tend to hype up their judges. If clerks are not saying uniformly nice things about a judge that is a red flag. A lot, and I mean a lot of judges are fine people to work for and not terrible bosses, but they also aren't the best mentors.

This. I would think that by "good mentor" OP means more than someone will write a letter of rec when asked, and the number of judges who will actually go to bat for their clerks/do more than write a rec letter is smaller than most law students assume.

Also, a lot of N.D. Cal.'s "interesting technology related matters" are just patent cases, which can be a real slog to work through as a clerk.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, not to pile on, but there can be a lot of daylight between “not abusive/actively miserable to work for” and “a good mentor.” You can’t really presume anything, and like people have said, speaking negatively about a judge is so fraught that the only red flag you may get is sort of measured or lukewarm praise. There is a clerkship transparency project out there that you can try checking out, but I don’t know how much information it’s managed to compile yet.