Top Law Schools

There's lots of available data on T14 fed clerkship placements through c/o 2014, but I haven't seen any kind of breakdown on (e.g.) Dist vs. CoA placement. Does this exist anywhere and/or does anyone have insight? Seems like not all schools' clerkship % is created equal, and I've heard (anecdotally) that, for example, S might place more students into fed clerkships than H, but they tend to be lower quality (presumably, higher % Dist). I'm skeptical about that claim, but would love to see some data on this if it exists.

It wouldn't matter since most people that do COA clerkships do district court clerkships or fellowships first. So the 9mo employment data doesn't capture anything meaningful b/t d.ct. and COA.

jbagelboy wrote:It wouldn't matter since most people that do COA clerkships do district court clerkships or fellowships first. So the 9mo employment data doesn't capture anything meaningful b/t d.ct. and COA.

So should 9 mo clerkship data be taken at face value (e.g., Stanford at 30% really is 2X better than HLS at 15%, or Berkeley at 15% = HLS at 15%)?

I know this is an oversimplification, but humor me...

jbagelboy wrote:It wouldn't matter since most people that do COA clerkships do district court clerkships or fellowships first. So the 9mo employment data doesn't capture anything meaningful b/t d.ct. and COA.

This is not accurate. As far as determining whether a school with lower raw placement is getting higher quality placement--that's nearly impossible to tell.

daleearnhardt123 wrote:

jbagelboy wrote:It wouldn't matter since most people that do COA clerkships do district court clerkships or fellowships first. So the 9mo employment data doesn't capture anything meaningful b/t d.ct. and COA.

This is not accurate. As far as determining whether a school with lower raw placement is getting higher quality placement--that's nearly impossible to tell.

It's absolutely accurate. Whether, e.g., more HLS students clerked with district court judges relative to COA than SLS students tells you nothing about how many will ultimately clerk on COA since so many of the district court clerks will find themselves at the appellate level the following year.

Even at the very highest level--feeders to SCOTUS--many have district court clerkships prior to their COA. And as you drift away from feeders, the practice of starting with a district judge only becomes more frequent. Many circuit judges now have explicit hiring policies where they recruit with the understanding that a d ct clerkship be completed prior.

At the end of the day, when talking about T6/top law school clerkship data, its not particulary meaningful to parse at the 9mo mark since the action takes place so many years out from graduation now. This wasn't true even 2-3 yrs ago but it certainly is now.

oliverotis wrote:

jbagelboy wrote:It wouldn't matter since most people that do COA clerkships do district court clerkships or fellowships first. So the 9mo employment data doesn't capture anything meaningful b/t d.ct. and COA.

So should 9 mo clerkship data be taken at face value (e.g., Stanford at 30% really is 2X better than HLS at 15%, or Berkeley at 15% = HLS at 15%)?

I know this is an oversimplification, but humor me...

I think if you look at the 5 year numbers then you'll see 15% is a low year for hls and a really good year for berk, fwiw

oliverotis wrote:

jbagelboy wrote:It wouldn't matter since most people that do COA clerkships do district court clerkships or fellowships first. So the 9mo employment data doesn't capture anything meaningful b/t d.ct. and COA.

So should 9 mo clerkship data be taken at face value (e.g., Stanford at 30% really is 2X better than HLS at 15%, or Berkeley at 15% = HLS at 15%)?

I know this is an oversimplification, but humor me...

No, it shouldn't.

Anyone who has been through the clerkship hiring process and secured one or multiple positions -- other than the very few cherry picked for a handful of early feeders-- knows that this data is highly deceptive and cannot be taken at face value. If you know you want to litigate and having an experience in chambers is important to you, procure detailed information fromthe clerkship office of whatever school you're looking at (data that includes alumni clerks and the breakdown of which circuits and districts). Otherwise the only probative value is in conjunction with firm statistics as a general measure of placement into advantageous positions.

Clemenceau wrote:

oliverotis wrote:

jbagelboy wrote:It wouldn't matter since most people that do COA clerkships do district court clerkships or fellowships first. So the 9mo employment data doesn't capture anything meaningful b/t d.ct. and COA.

So should 9 mo clerkship data be taken at face value (e.g., Stanford at 30% really is 2X better than HLS at 15%, or Berkeley at 15% = HLS at 15%)?

I know this is an oversimplification, but humor me...

I think if you look at the 5 year numbers then you'll see 15% is a low year for hls and a really good year for berk, fwiw

Yep, aware of this for sure. Tks for the heads up though.

jbagelboy wrote:

oliverotis wrote:

jbagelboy wrote:It wouldn't matter since most people that do COA clerkships do district court clerkships or fellowships first. So the 9mo employment data doesn't capture anything meaningful b/t d.ct. and COA.

So should 9 mo clerkship data be taken at face value (e.g., Stanford at 30% really is 2X better than HLS at 15%, or Berkeley at 15% = HLS at 15%)?

I know this is an oversimplification, but humor me...

No, it shouldn't.

Anyone who has been through the clerkship hiring process and secured one or multiple positions -- other than the very few cherry picked for a handful of early feeders-- knows that this data is highly deceptive and cannot be taken at face value. If you know you want to litigate and having an experience in chambers is important to you, procure detailed information fromthe clerkship office of whatever school you're looking at (data that includes alumni clerks and the breakdown of which circuits and districts). Otherwise the only probative value is in conjunction with firm statistics as a general measure of placement into advantageous positions.

Thanks, makes sense. Biglaw data isn't super helpful for me, in part because I'm shooting for bigfed / PI litigation, and because I think it reflects more self selection / institutional culture than clerkship data (compare, for example, Columbia vs UChi or Penn vs. UVA/Berk). That being said, plenty of clerkship self selection too, esp at UChi for example

oliverotis wrote:There's lots of available data on T14 fed clerkship placements through c/o 2014, but I haven't seen any kind of breakdown on (e.g.) Dist vs. CoA placement. Does this exist anywhere and/or does anyone have insight? Seems like not all schools' clerkship % is created equal, and I've heard (anecdotally) that, for example, S might place more students into fed clerkships than H, but they tend to be lower quality (presumably, higher % Dist). I'm skeptical about that claim, but would love to see some data on this if it exists.

Seems like the best way is too look at both federal clerkships and SCOTUS clerkships (see below). If anyone finds CoA data, that would be very interesting.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=256943

At some schools, current students have access to detailed data.

ObiWahooKenobi wrote:

oliverotis wrote:There's lots of available data on T14 fed clerkship placements through c/o 2014, but I haven't seen any kind of breakdown on (e.g.) Dist vs. CoA placement. Does this exist anywhere and/or does anyone have insight? Seems like not all schools' clerkship % is created equal, and I've heard (anecdotally) that, for example, S might place more students into fed clerkships than H, but they tend to be lower quality (presumably, higher % Dist). I'm skeptical about that claim, but would love to see some data on this if it exists.

Seems like the best way is too look at both federal clerkships and SCOTUS clerkships (see below). If anyone finds CoA data, that would be very interesting.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=256943

Sample size is too small for SCOTUS data to be very meaningful outside of HYSC IMO

ETA: also making a decision based even partly on SCOTUS placement seems sort of ridiculous IMO

jbagelboy wrote:

daleearnhardt123 wrote:

jbagelboy wrote:It wouldn't matter since most people that do COA clerkships do district court clerkships or fellowships first. So the 9mo employment data doesn't capture anything meaningful b/t d.ct. and COA.

This is not accurate. As far as determining whether a school with lower raw placement is getting higher quality placement--that's nearly impossible to tell.

It's absolutely accurate. Whether, e.g., more HLS students clerked with district court judges relative to COA than SLS students tells you nothing about how many will ultimately clerk on COA since so many of the district court clerks will find themselves at the appellate level the following year.

Even at the very highest level--feeders to SCOTUS--many have district court clerkships prior to their COA. And as you drift away from feeders, the practice of starting with a district judge only becomes more frequent. Many circuit judges now have explicit hiring policies where they recruit with the understanding that a d ct clerkship be completed prior.

At the end of the day, when talking about T6/top law school clerkship data, its not particulary meaningful to parse at the 9mo mark since the action takes place so many years out from graduation now. This wasn't true even 2-3 yrs ago but it certainly is now.

one caveat, bagelbro, is that your school's location in the Second Circuit might skew your perception a little--although the Second Circuit largely hires clerks with prior experience (e.g. SDNY or EDNY clerkships, although they pull from other places too), many if not most other circuits hire CoA clerks straight from law school. I interviewed with a lot of the top boutiques that heavily recruit clerks, and it's surprisingly uncommon for people to have two clerkships (not counting SCOTUS clerks--those folks obviously do always have a prior clerkship).

RetakeFrenzy wrote:At some schools, current students have access to detailed data.

This is true - oftentimes it's not run through the career office, though, but maintained unofficially. Ask student organization leaders at the schools you're considering.

A couple thoughts on other things from this thread: more and more COA judges are hiring early (even non-"feeder" judges). I checked our school's data today after reading this thread, and at least 13% of my class already has a COA clerkship lined up. Additionally, many district judges now seem to be wanting a COA clerkship beforehand (it's no longer atypical to go COA-D.Ct.).

(In short, bruinfan is correct)

Vursz wrote:

RetakeFrenzy wrote:At some schools, current students have access to detailed data.

This is true - oftentimes it's not run through the career office, though, but maintained unofficially. Ask student organization leaders at the schools you're considering.

A couple thoughts on other things from this thread: more and more COA judges are hiring early (even non-"feeder" judges). I checked our school's data today after reading this thread, and at least 13% of my class already has a COA clerkship lined up. Additionally, many district judges now seem to be wanting a COA clerkship beforehand (it's no longer atypical to go COA-D.Ct.).

I wouldn't say "many" want a prior CoA, but a few DJs do have that as a requirement. And having a prior CoA gig does make getting a d.ct job in the competitive districts a lot easier. TBH, I think the district court job is objectively a lot harder, it'd make sense if district judges started placing more and more emphasis on prior experience--CoA is incredibly similar to law school, much easier to do without legal experience.

I'll grant that I was wrong to say "most" but I'll also point out that many law students don't attend Yale. It's not just 2nd circuit judges that often take students who have some other relevant experience, but many 1st circuit, DC, and 7th as well (in other words, outside of the 9th circuit, the most desirable). This is becoming more and more true strictly from a timing perspective: consider, if a judge is interviewing 2Ls for fall 2018 positions (a cursory glance at OSCAR confirms there are plenty), they assume the student will be working either for another judge, at a firm, or pursuing a fellowship in the interim. Maybe it's rare that a prior clerkship is an explicit requirement, but when the recruiting season is so accelerated its an implicit reality.

What we all seem to agree about is that a distribution of district and circuit court judges by the current available data that does not count alumni wouldn't tell us anything of value, for a number of reasons: some COA judges expect a district court first, some hire so far out that the clerk must pursue other opportunities in the meantime, sometimes the district judge might actually be more competitive/desirable than the COA (for example, clerking for judge thapar is probably a better signaler to SCOTUS than starting with most circuit judges), sometimes the order is reversed, and any number of other reasons.

Clerkship data is tough. A lot of people work for a year, a not-insignificant number of people clerk for two years (I know quite a few people with two COA clerkships lined up, or with D. Ct. + COA lined up). 9 months out numbers are a decent proxy, but you can probably expect some of those to bump 1 or 2 points as an actual number of people that clerk based on those factors.