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Is the following propositions true/valid?

"A clerkship only makes sense if you are interested in Litigation. If you are interested in transactional work, it is not worth your time to lose a year working at a lower clerkship salary when you could be performing transactional work. "
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Question is: is it worth it to do a federal clerkship if you already landed up a transactional big law job?

You can always get a clerkship later, not so with the firm job. If the firm job works out really well then you will not need the clerkship at all.

Anonymous User wrote:Is the following propositions true/valid?

"A clerkship only makes sense if you are interested in Litigation. If you are interested in transactional work, it is not worth your time to lose a year working at a lower clerkship salary when you could be performing transactional work. "
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Question is: is it worth it to do a federal clerkship if you already landed up a transactional big law job?

I was about to respond with "that's totally ridiculous," but now that I realize the advice is coming from Appalachian School of Law, it makes sense. Students from Appalachian are not going to get federal circuit court or district court clerkships. If someone wants to do transactional work, clerking for a Virginia state trial court wouldn't serve much of a purpose. IMO, no one with the credentials for an Article III clerkship should pass on it.

MrAnon wrote: If the firm job works out really well then you will not need the clerkship at all.

Cavalier wrote: no one with the credentials for an Article III clerkship should pass on it.

How to reconcile the two statements? What is the value for a transactional biglaw lawyer to have a federal clerkship? Will he/she have a better chance to get a partnership than if he/she does not do the clerkship?

Anonymous User wrote:Is the following propositions true/valid?

"A clerkship only makes sense if you are interested in Litigation. If you are interested in transactional work, it is not worth your time to lose a year working at a lower clerkship salary when you could be performing transactional work. "
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Question is: is it worth it to do a federal clerkship if you already landed up a transactional big law job?

I attended a panel discussion at my firm last summer on clerkships and a transactional associate was present. She said that in many ways, she wishes she had not done her clerkship. Her main reason was that she came in as a second year and firms have certain benchmarks that they want people to meet, but in reality, her knowledge base was that of a first year because what she did in her clerkship wasn't useful to her practice.

no clue why you would want to do a clerkship as a transactional inclined person

Cavalier wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Is the following propositions true/valid?

"A clerkship only makes sense if you are interested in Litigation. If you are interested in transactional work, it is not worth your time to lose a year working at a lower clerkship salary when you could be performing transactional work. "
--LinkRemoved--

Question is: is it worth it to do a federal clerkship if you already landed up a transactional big law job?

I was about to respond with "that's totally ridiculous," but now that I realize the advice is coming from Appalachian School of Law, it makes sense. Students from Appalachian are not going to get federal circuit court or district court clerkships. If someone wants to do transactional work, clerking for a Virginia state trial court wouldn't serve much of a purpose. IMO, no one with the credentials for an Article III clerkship should pass on it.

Nothing posted would not apply to Article III judges. While you will have a judge contact and trial experience, if you are doing corporate work, this is simply not relavant to your work. You won't need to know judges and you won't be going to trial.

You do realize that there are several transactionally-oriented clerkships, right? Delaware chancery, Fed BK courts, Delaware Supreme, and even arguably SDNY fit that description.

Anonymous User wrote:You do realize that there are several transactionally-oriented clerkships, right? Delaware chancery, Fed BK courts, Delaware Supreme, and even arguably SDNY fit that description.

How about a COA clerkship? Even you do transactional work, isn't a COA a prestigious thing on your resume?

Why the hell are the posts in this thread anonymous?

I'm going to be working at a transactional-heavy bankruptcy practice. I'll be doing a CoA clerkship. I don't think a district court - or even a bankruptcy court - would have been worth losing a year at the firm.

This is one of the reasons why I never understood why people would say things like "you need law review to get an offer at a V10" when they, for the most part, were talking about getting transactional NYC firms. Conventional wisdom says that clerkships and law review aren't particularly important/relevant for transactional positions (which the vast majority of people interested in NYC and V10 firms are going for--seemingly most of TLS).

Anonymous User wrote:You do realize that there are several transactionally-oriented clerkships, right? Delaware chancery, Fed BK courts, Delaware Supreme, and even arguably SDNY fit that description.

Is this true for all corporate work though. I doesn't appear apparent to me that this would be helpful at all for M&A work or something similar. I admit I don't really know anything about it though.

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NYAssociate wrote:You really don't need a clerkship to do corporate work. Or bluebooking skills. Or know how to use Lexis/Westlaw.

God, those corporate guys are lucky.

Gogo bankruptcy, where you need to be able to do everything everyone does.