Clerkships: state vs. federal? Forum

[traydeuce]

When thinking of district courts, remember that location matters much more than at the appellate level. Judge Thomas (9th Cir.) may be in Billings, but the cases he hears are from all over the 9th circuit, but if you're at a D.Ct. in Montana, you'll be hearing much less interesting cases. In contrast, the Western District of Texas includes Austin, where the cases will be interesting, but also includes Waco, where the case load will be much different.

That's pretty subjective.

If you're talking about some complex securities law, then yes, you're not going to see any of that. You're probably going to see a lot of interesting criminal work - especially drug conspiracies.

Every non-white-collar criminal case is exactly the same.

No, they raise different issues.

[Anonymous User]

Crim cases have really interesting facts, and sometimes interesting issues... lots of other cases involve interesting legal issues but sometimes boring facts. Personally, I'd rather do a clerkship with a crim and immigration heavy docket.

[Anonymous User]

Obviously there's going to be a range, but does anyone know or can point me in the direction of a resource for salaries of state court and Article III clerkships? And I'm assuming those jobs can also qualify for IBR and PSLF? Thanks.

State
http://www.law.virginia.edu/pdf/judclerkguide2010.pdf
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Neither contains perfect information (some outdated, some just wrong).

Federal
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Yes, all jobs qualify for IBR; you can google to find out about loan forgiveness.

Thanks from anon!

[Anonymous User]

It is unlikely that you could use a firm relationship to get a clerkship -- in fact, I'd be very reluctant to let your firm know you're looking until you've accepted an offer.

This probably varies a lot. My experience was the opposite. Attorneys at my firm were happy to help with my clerkship process by giving advice as well as volunteering to put in a good word with the judges they knew personally.