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Gang, I'm thinking of going rogue, and applying to clerkships off plan/outside my school's protocol.

My school, Texas (newest member of the T-14 awwwwwww yeaaaaaa) has a very strict in-house clerkship machine. Basically, they guide us carefully through the entire process, and then send a huge pile of apps to each judge the first day possible. So, on September whatever, the judge gets 20-100 UT resumes (however many decided to apply to that judge) and, get this they are stacked by order of GPA, highest ones on top.

My 20% GPA will be near the middle/bottom of the pack. This is a stacked deck - a game I can't win. There is no way they are even getting to my app.

So, I'm thinking of sending my apps in on my own, outside of this system. Additionally, I'm thinking of sending mine in *gasp* before the plan says we can! Is there any penalty for doing this?

What are your thoughts? Idiotic? Shrewd?

Go for it! Fuck the man!

Some judges won't care, others will. Those that are likely not to care are district court judges from less prestigious districts who aren't really keyed into "the plan." I know this because I am clerking for one next year (and know that he ignores the schedule). The more competitive the clerkship, the more likely the judge wants you to follow the rules.

You can do whatever you want, but I would recommend sticking with your school's machine.

Anonymous User wrote:Gang, I'm thinking of going rogue, and applying to clerkships off plan/outside my school's protocol.

My school, Texas (newest member of the T-14 awwwwwww yeaaaaaa) has a very strict in-house clerkship machine. Basically, they guide us carefully through the entire process, and then send a huge pile of apps to each judge the first day possible. So, on September whatever, the judge gets 20-100 UT resumes (however many decided to apply to that judge) and, get this they are stacked by order of GPA, highest ones on top.

My 20% GPA will be near the middle/bottom of the pack. This is a stacked deck - a game I can't win. There is no way they are even getting to my app.

So, I'm thinking of sending my apps in on my own, outside of this system. Additionally, I'm thinking of sending mine in *gasp* before the plan says we can! Is there any penalty for doing this?

What are your thoughts? Idiotic? Shrewd?

Actually this makes a lot of sense, and what’s your school even going to do? Complain to you about you getting an article III clerkship, and then add a tally to their clerkship numbers with a smile when you aren’t looking? Lol.

If you can get your recommenders on board, I really don’t see much harm in doing this. But do try to get information about which judges are hiring off-plan and apply to those (you can find this information in various ways – e.g. lawclerk addict, etc.) Some judges do strictly adhere to the plan and it will not benefit you to apply early via paper application to those judges. However, other judges strictly say “fuck the plan, I’m a prestigious article III judge, and I’ll do whatever the hell I want to do,” and those are the judges you want to be applying to.

If a judge is accepting applications off-plan, then you should definitely send in an application off-plan. Check with your recommenders and make sure that they'd at least be willing to field phone calls from judges.

OP here - can you send paper apps to judges who accept electronically? This way I can't get OSCAR filter-pwned.

Anonymous User wrote:OP here - can you send paper apps to judges who accept electronically? This way I can't get OSCAR filter-pwned.

Call chambers and ask.

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