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Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are revealing sensitive employment related information about a firm, job, etc. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.
Failure to follow these rules will get you outed, warned, or banned.
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Re: financial hit from clerking for three years
Do you have a firm offer? At what salary? Are they still going to take you in 3 years? Signing bonus? Time credit?
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Re: financial hit from clerking for three years
Not quite sure about this. My guess is that you'll go in as JSP-11 for the DC clerkship (though your judge might be able to swing JSP-12 if he's really willing to go to bat for you), then JSP-12 in your first COA year. At that point, it becomes a little more complicated. Currently, there is a freeze on clerk promotions, so you might be stuck at JSP-12. If the freeze is lifted by then, you'll likely go up to JSP-13. If the judge doesn't have a career clerk or another term clerk who is more senior to you (i.e., he or she had three years of clerking at that point), you could even be promoted to JSP-14, though that's probably a long shot.I looked up the JSP-12 rate of $72k for the city where I'll be clerking. I assumed JSP-12 from another legal blog (which said JSP-12 for clerks).
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Re: financial hit from clerking for three years
That probably sounds about right. You'll be making a lot more money in big law for sure. The 1 year district court clerkship sounds like a great thing to do and a great career starter. The marginal benefit of also doing a 2 year CoA clerkship after that probably isn't worth the ~210k in lost income unless you really want appellate litigation / high profile govt work / academia.fastlenny wrote:Some big law firm will take me in three years, if not my 2LSA firm (which extended me an offer). Signing bonus of $50k for any federal district/coa or state supreme clerkship. Time credit - I don't know, depends on which firm I end up on the other side of this mountain.duckmoney wrote:Do you have a firm offer? At what salary? Are they still going to take you in 3 years? Signing bonus? Time credit?
I looked up the JSP-12 rate of $72k for the city where I'll be clerking. I assumed JSP-12 from another legal blog (which said JSP-12 for clerks).
So let's just say 72, 72, 72 versus 160, 170, 180.
That is almost 250k pre-tax (after adjusting for bonus). But after taxes from the big law pay, I guess the delta is a lot less, but how much less? Cost of living isn't much of a difference, I'm clerking in a more expensive city for years 2, 3 than where I'd work in big law - and a cheaper city for year 1, so let's just say that cancels out.
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Re: financial hit from clerking for three years
In order to do the calculations you need to provide a bit more information.
In what city would you be working and living if you were not clerking?
The government pay scales are all location adjusted, so the location of your clerkships matter as well.
I would imagine that there may also be some pay differences among firms for third year clerks. Do you know what standing and bonus the firm you SA'ed at will give you if you return?
In what city would you be working and living if you were not clerking?
The government pay scales are all location adjusted, so the location of your clerkships matter as well.
I would imagine that there may also be some pay differences among firms for third year clerks. Do you know what standing and bonus the firm you SA'ed at will give you if you return?
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