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Anecdotal evidence suggests that judges today increasingly prefer to hire clerks with experience over 3L's. In other words, many fewer 3L's are getting clerkships. I came across Yale's employment stats (http://www.law.yale.edu/studentlife/cdo ... tstats.htm), and they support this conclusion:

Graduating Class / % of students clerking
2007 - 41.4%
2008 - 35.1%
2009 - 30.6%

There could be other explanations for the drop (fewer Yale 3L's want clerkships, Yale is losing clerkship market share to other schools), but I doubt these alternatives could account for such a large decrease. Just something to keep in mind for those who want to clerk - it's TOUGH to get a clerkship right out of school.

11% drop in 2 years? Yiiikes. I love they try to mitigate it with the disclaimer, haha.

And those numbers are before the massive change in the game that occured for the C/O 2011. More alumni candidates than 3Ls were hired for CoA clerkships for the first time, etc.

Judges have been saying lately that more people are sticken around longer than a year. Clerking for 2-3 years is becoming common. This plus the growing trend of hiring clerks with several years of experience means the total number of clerkships available to new graduates is declining.