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Anyone have any insights on how getting on track to clerk in BK court varies from clerking generally? What the relevant coursework/considerations are? Whether firms value it?

Interested in this as well...

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Well, obvious answer is to take a bankrupty course, but I think it's the only major difference. I've seen a lot of openings for bankruptcy clerkships on uscourts.gov (sometimes their openings don't show up on OSCAR, though many do) and many, many of them require or highly prefer someone with such coursework or experience. I seem to recall reading in one posting something about a preference for someone with commercial litigation courses, too.

It'd be valued if you're going into bankruptcy/creditor rights or something similar, but I don't know about generally.

lolwat wrote:Well, obvious answer is to take a bankrupty course, but I think it's the only major difference. I've seen a lot of openings for bankruptcy clerkships on uscourts.gov (sometimes their openings don't show up on OSCAR, though many do) and many, many of them require or highly prefer someone with such coursework or experience. I seem to recall reading in one posting something about a preference for someone with commercial litigation courses, too.

It'd be valued if you're going into bankruptcy/creditor rights or something similar, but I don't know about generally.

Thanks. Do you or does anyone else know about other "clerkship gunner" coursework? Do you need to take evidence? FedJur? Civ Pro II?

Anonymous User wrote:Thanks. Do you or does anyone else know about other "clerkship gunner" coursework? Do you need to take evidence? FedJur? Civ Pro II?

I think the basic ones are fed jur, evidence, admin law. Not sure what civ pro 2 is, but that sounds good too.

I'm not sure those coursework REALLY matter, though. I've seen plenty of people say that it's better to maintain an A taking other classes than it is to take fedjur and get a B.

lolwat wrote:Well, obvious answer is to take a bankrupty course, but I think it's the only major difference. I've seen a lot of openings for bankruptcy clerkships on uscourts.gov (sometimes their openings don't show up on OSCAR, though many do) and many, many of them require or highly prefer someone with such coursework or experience. I seem to recall reading in one posting something about a preference for someone with commercial litigation courses, too.

It'd be valued if you're going into bankruptcy/creditor rights or something similar, but I don't know about generally.

Only if you get one of the "big" chapter 11 judges (i.e., the district of delaware, some of the SDNY people), and even then, not necessarily. (I am going into a bankruptcy practice, and was explicitly told that unless I got a CoA, they would "highly prefer" that I not accept any clerkship - and the hattip to CoA was a transparent nod to prestige; I think they would have been happier had I started right out of school.)

This might vary based on the debtor/vulture fund vs. creditor dichotomy, as debtor-side practice is more transactionally-oriented, while creditor-side is more litigation-oriented. But in any event, bankruptcy practice in the courts outside of Delaware and SDNY is basically dominated by Ch. 7/13 stuff (and single-asset Ch. 11) that is totally irrelevant to the work big firms do in bankruptcy.

About how tough are bankruptcy clerkships to snag compared to other federal or state clerkships?

I interned for one of the "big" chapter 11 judges in Delaware - the clerks come from all over the place but because its kind of specialized, its less competitive than you'd think. The judges are mostly awesome down there, but two of them have career clerks so there are only 6 positions available per year.
I think interning in Bcy Delaware gave me a huge leg up in firm interviewing and I know the big bcy firms in NY look very favorably on bcy court experience. Some of the clerks are on their way to v10 firms.

Admin is not really relevant to the work you'd be doing as a bankruptcy law clerk. You should take Debtor/Creditor, Business Reorganizations, and Secured Transactions. Those are the main courses any bankruptcy judge would look for in a transcript.

The poster above is pretty much right about bankruptcy judges outside of Bankr. D. Del. and Bankr. S.D.N.Y. not having many big firm-type cases, but it's not black-and-white. Big cases do sometimes get filed in other bankruptcy courts. However, you have no idea going in if your judge's docket will be pretty routine or if a massive case will be filed (or, for the matter, if a big case currently before your judge will wind down before you start clerking).