On Plan Clerkships 2011 Forum

[Anonymous User]

Seemingly ignorant question here. I have been under the impression that you just never say no to a judge. Hence, all of this talk about holding offers open confuses me. What am I missing?

Yeah, OCS tells you that because it produces overall highest numbers for the school to report to US News. In the real world, you recognize that you have value and negotiate, even if it's just by asking how long the judge will hold the offer open.

[Anonymous User]

Why not call coa judge, tell him/her you would like to do dct first and would like to have time to consider the possibility of a dct offer. Worst he can do is say no and then you have to choose.

[2LLLL]

Why not call coa judge, tell him/her you would like to do dct first and would like to have time to consider the possibility of a dct offer. Worst he can do is say no and then you have to choose.

Because he has leverage but not that much leverage. As I understand it, it's relatively lucky to be able to hold the offer open in the first place, asking for an extension is probably pushing it, especially when the district court judge seems to be lukewarm.

[Anonymous User]

Why not call coa judge, tell him/her you would like to do dct first and would like to have time to consider the possibility of a dct offer. Worst he can do is say no and then you have to choose.

"Hello, Judge? I don't really want to work for you, but I guess I will if I can't get this other job. So you'll hold things open for a few days, right?

..

..

Hello?"

[zomginternets]

Why not call coa judge, tell him/her you would like to do dct first and would like to have time to consider the possibility of a dct offer. Worst he can do is say no and then you have to choose.

"Hello, Judge? I don't really want to work for you, but I guess I will if I can't get this other job. So you'll hold things open for a few days, right?

..

..

Hello?"

lol. I agree that would be a stupid thing to say, but if you think about it, that's kinda what you are saying when you don't accept the offer on the spot.

[Anonymous User]

Why not call coa judge, tell him/her you would like to do dct first and would like to have time to consider the possibility of a dct offer. Worst he can do is say no and then you have to choose.

"Hello, Judge? I don't really want to work for you, but I guess I will if I can't get this other job. So you'll hold things open for a few days, right?

..

..

Hello?"

lol. I agree that would be a stupid thing to say, but if you think about it, that's kinda what you are saying when you don't accept the offer on the spot.

What you say, is, "I'm honored. I'd love to work for you. How long can you hold this offer open?"

Not, "I'd rather work for a district court, but..."

[Anonymous User]

Actually, what I said to the guy whose offer that I didn't accept on the spot was that I had scheduled interviews outstanding and wanted to see how I liked those chambers and those judges, though I found everything that he said about his chambers and process very appealing, and was strongly inclined to accept. So it definitely wasn't a "there's someone out there I definitely like better than you" thing. Now at this point, sure, I'd love to get some time out of him, and I do think I will call tomorrow just to clarify the precise time the offer expires because my interview tomorrow (another COA interview with a judge I may or may not like better) is in the afternoon, so, if he thinks it explodes at 5, I could still be sitting around talking to Tuesday while the offer explodes in my face. And perhaps in that conversation I could wheedle an extra day just to have some time to assess the relative merits of these judges. It'd be a little much to get an offer at 4:30 and have to make a choice in a half hour.

[Anonymous User]

Actually, what I said to the guy whose offer that I didn't accept on the spot was that I had scheduled interviews outstanding and wanted to see how I liked those chambers and those judges, though I found everything that he said about his chambers and process very appealing, and was strongly inclined to accept. So it definitely wasn't a "there's someone out there I definitely like better than you" thing. Now at this point, sure, I'd love to get some time out of him, and I do think I will call tomorrow just to clarify the precise time the offer expires because my interview tomorrow (another COA interview with a judge I may or may not like better) is in the afternoon, so, if he thinks it explodes at 5, I could still be sitting around talking to Tuesday while the offer explodes in my face. And perhaps in that conversation I could wheedle an extra day just to have some time to assess the relative merits of these judges. It'd be a little much to get an offer at 4:30 and have to make a choice in a half hour.

Revising my assessment: you're a wanker. You won't find out anything you don't really already know about any judge through interviewing. You could lose it all here. Just take the offer.

[Anonymous User]

N/M

[Anonymous User]

You won't find out anything you don't really already know about any judge through interviewing.

Not true. I interviewed with a judge who I liked on paper but really didn't click with him personally. I assume the opposite can happen as well; you're luke warm on a judge but meet her and her clerks and realize you'd love to work there.

[Anonymous User]

Is it possible that clerkship decisions operate a bit like OCI decisions, where you might be put into a "hold" pile? A judge told me he or she would get back to me by Friday, and I haven't received a call or a ding (snail or e-mail -- I live close enough to chambers where the mail would get here in 1-2 days). Now I'm puzzled, despite bracing myself for a ding for a good five or six days now.

[Anonymous User]

Sure he didn't mean he'd give you an offer by Friday if you were hired? Communicating rejections just isn't a huge priority.

[Anonymous User]

My judge gave me two days, which was generous given that he knew I was interviewing the next day. It didn't matter -- I cleared it with my spouse and called back a few hours later to accept. (He was by far my first choice, both personality-wise and geographically.) Then I cancelled the next day's interview at the very last minute, which I felt awful about, though the clerk was very nice and said that s/he completely understood. But now I have an open ticket to the city that I have to use in the next year!

By the way, I just got a "I'm done hiring" email from a sorta kinda flyover judge (big city, but not on either coast or Chicago). He said there were more than 700 applications for his spots.

[Anonymous User]

Could you tell us the circuit/district?

[aguacaliente]

to the person deciding whether to accept COA/DDC:

at worst, just accept the COA gig (unless you really just don't want to clerk for this person; if that is the case, let it go), and interview with DDC -- tell DDC that you had an offer and accepted, and if he/she likes you, they can offer the spot for the following year, which you can then take. there, you do DDC + COA, just in a different order. i suppose you lose out on the chance to go to a different COA judge for your second clerkship, but to be honest, how much the DDC clerkship will help land an insane COA judge depends on who the judge personally knows more than anything -- there's no way to know that for a while, anyways.

personally, i'd take the COA and try and land the DDC for the year following.

[Anonymous User]

Could you tell us the circuit/district?

If it's the same email I just got (regarding 700 apps), it was Judge Ellison on the S.D.Tex.

[Anonymous User]

I was actually more interested in knowing the circuit/district of the judge who extended the offer.

[Anonymous User]

I was actually more interested in knowing the circuit/district of the judge who extended the offer.

Sorry, for a variety of reasons that would be a little too self-identifying. To use my definition from above, it's a district court that's NOT in a "sorta kinda flyover district."

[peter2009]

Any accepted bankruptcy clerkships out there?

[Anonymous User]

DDC person here. I just want to say that there is no quandary here, esp. since I have no firm job waiting for me. The only question is whether, if given an offer this afternoon by another coa judge whom I probably like less than the offer I have, I should take it to push my deadline out to 2 days after that offer is extended (they last 2 days), thereby possibly giving ddc the time to swoop in on Thursday.

[Anonymous User]

University of Texas accepted Clerkships

Hot-off-the-presses job offers:
Brady, MD LA
Briones, WD TX
Burrell, ED CA
Johnson, TX CCA
Kazen, SD TX
Massengale, TX 1st Ct. of Appeals
Snow, D AZ

Previously reported job offers:
Anderson, 11th Cir.
Benton, 8th Cir.
Boggs, 6th Cir.
Fuller, MD AL
Gardephe, SD NY
Godbey, ND TX
Kravitch, 11th Cir.
Lamberth, D DC
Lehrmann, TX Supreme Ct.
Lewis, D VI
Prado, 5th Cir.
Rogers, 6th Cir.
Sentelle, DC Cir.
Sparks, WD TX

Other schools???

[Anonymous User]

The conclusion of my mildly exciting ddc saga is that I got the second coa offer this afternoon. But I think they were a little mad at me that I wasn't up front about the exploding offer I had, so they gave me a super-exploding offer that was no help in waiting out ddc. So, I took offer one.

[Anonymous User]

What ridiculous antics? All I did was interview with one judge with a soon-to-expire offer on the table from another. He did, after all, give me an offer so he couldn't have been that mad. It made sense to make it a super-quick exploding, given that, by the end of the day, I had to let Offer 1 know anyway. Offer 2 didn't know about DDC, so he would assume that I'm either picking him or Offer 1, and I might as well tell him right away if I had to decide on Offer 1 right away. And, I think, admittedly, once I asked how much time they'd give me to decide, they probably began to suspect that there was something else out there and I was hoping to use them to buy time, so they wanted to know then and there. It's unfortunate about DDC, but there's always 2013.

[Anonymous User]

A district judge with whom I interviewed last week said that he'd be making a decision this week and would likely make calls today. Does anybody know whether judges typically make such calls first thing in the morning or is it pretty random?

[treant985]

Could be anytime, but I'd say less likely it'd be after 4pm...