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What are non-financial negatives of clerking for 3 consecutive years out of law school? 1 year D.Ct. -> 2 years COA.
Can those be ameliorated by trying to land AUSA after these three years? I essentially don't ever want to be a junior associate (thus anonymous). I'd rather just clerk, clerk, AUSA, and learn everything that way.

I can't really think of any. Opportunity cost, maybe? But that can definitely be argued both ways.

You'll be an old first-year associate?

Halp, G.T.L. Rev.

Anonymous User wrote:What are non-financial negatives of clerking for 3 consecutive years out of law school? 1 year D.Ct. -> 2 years COA.
Can those be ameliorated by trying to land AUSA after these three years? I essentially don't ever want to be a junior associate (thus anonymous). I'd rather just clerk, clerk, AUSA, and learn everything that way.

Dumb plan huh?

I mean the pretty obvious non-financial negative is that you will be seeing as having semi-redundant experience (the learning curve of clerking flattens relatively quickly, from what I hear), and no actual experience litigating as a participant. Particularly for AUSA jobs, I imagine it's preferable to hire someone who has experience on both sides (clerk, and firm/other litigating experience).

How much of a negative or how much of a factor is this? I have no idea.

imchuckbass58 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:What are non-financial negatives of clerking for 3 consecutive years out of law school? 1 year D.Ct. -> 2 years COA.
Can those be ameliorated by trying to land AUSA after these three years? I essentially don't ever want to be a junior associate (thus anonymous). I'd rather just clerk, clerk, AUSA, and learn everything that way.

Dumb plan huh?

I mean the pretty obvious non-financial negative is that you will be seeing as having semi-redundant experience (the learning curve of clerking flattens relatively quickly, from what I hear), and no actual experience litigating as a participant. Particularly for AUSA jobs, I imagine it's preferable to hire someone who has experience on both sides (clerk, and firm/other litigating experience).

How much of a negative or how much of a factor is this? I have no idea.

Does this "flat" learning curve cross over from D.Ct. to COA? I get how D.Ct. helps in district court litigation. How does COA? G.T.L.Rev.? It has to be more than "legal research and writing" in terms of "value added" for COA.

Why not do 3 years clerking -> lit boutique -> AUSA? This is my plan, hopefully, although I intend to do 1 year D.Ct. and 1 COA. 1-2 years at a lit boutique shouldn't be so bad, then transition to AUSA. Make money for a couple years, get some real life litigation/court experience. Sets you up better for AUSA application I think.

smokyroom26 wrote:I can't really think of any. Opportunity cost, maybe? But that can definitely be argued both ways.

You'll be an old first-year associate?

Halp, G.T.L. Rev.

They usually give you those years. One guy I interviewed with clerked for two years and started as a third-year associate with all of the same responsibilities that went with that year.

In as another Anon trying to do this.

OP, please don't graduate in 2013 and pursue my same career path. CDCal and SDCal are the only districts that hire clerks. Maybe we can work something out where you'll go get your LLM....

If you go from clerk to firm, you get the appropriate seniority (some will only credit two years), but that also means having the firm expect you to do that level of work. Probably not as big a deal if you want to do appellate work. Can you even go straight from a (non-SC) clerkship to AUSA? The Honors program definitely prefers clerks.