district court clerk taking questions Forum

[Anonymous User]

Just started my clerkship earlier this year.

[Anonymous User]

Just started my clerkship earlier this year.

1. What's your typical day like?

2. How steep was the learning curve?

[Anonymous User]

How competitive was the hiring?
What were your grades?
What is the pay like?

[Anonymous User]

What are the hours like? And what general category of a dct is it (e.g., SDNY/NDCal/EDNY/NDIl? Or somewhere less competitive).

[romothesavior]

How did you get it? Connection or mass mail?

Who were your recs from?

General location/level of competitiveness?

Grades/school?

[Tangerine Gleam]

Is your judge abiding by the plan this year?

[TLSNYC]

What kind of grades from a T10 does it take to be competitive? Do 1L grades matter more than 2L or 3L grades in your opinion?

[Anonymous User]

you bored out of your mind or no?

[buckilaw]

How many hours a week do you usually work?

[Anonymous User]

Just started my clerkship earlier this year.

1. What's your typical day like?

2. How steep was the learning curve?

1. Typical day, get in, check out the activity in our docket. Call deputy for scheduling confirmations for various hearings. Print out a hearing schedule so I can plan my breaks, lunch, etc. My judge usually likes to discuss motions corresponding to hearings day before the hearing, so I do that. Attend hearing, take notes, debrief with judge. When not in hearings, research and writing. Judge likes to attend judicial conferences, and I tend to tag along those - that involves some prep.

2. Learning curve was pretty steep. By week 3, I was good to go.

[Anonymous User]

How competitive was the hiring?
What were your grades?
What is the pay like?

Hiring was nuts. I was told that there were 600+ applications for my position. But maybe that was for both spots. RIght now things are supposed to be super slow, yet we still get a dozen applications a week. We anticipate that to hike up to hundreds per day for OSCAR. Very lucky to get this job. The pay is public information. If I reveal my JSP level, I reveal stuff about myself, so I'd rather just refer you to that.

[Anonymous User]

What are the hours like? And what general category of a dct is it (e.g., SDNY/NDCal/EDNY/NDIl? Or somewhere less competitive).

It is in the first category you refer to.

The hours are excellent. 45-50 hours a week.

[Anonymous User]

How did you get it? Connection or mass mail?

Who were your recs from?

General location/level of competitiveness?

Grades/school?

The former clerk worked at the firm I worked at.

[Anonymous User]

Is your judge abiding by the plan this year?

Yes.

[Anonymous User]

What kind of grades from a T10 does it take to be competitive? Do 1L grades matter more than 2L or 3L grades in your opinion?

For this court, probably top 10% to be competitve. My judge rarely hires people who don't get profs to call. And if some star student applies for whom the prof didn't call, the judge usually asks us to ask the student to have the references call. And yes, its a district judge. We get so many top 10% applications that we don't even open the LORs/etc. if we don't see that on the top line of the resume.

Sounds cold, but that's the only practical way to wade through 1000s of documents of flattering words.

[Anonymous User]

you bored out of your mind or no?

absolutely not. There has not been one day of my time here that I would describe as being "boring." Heck, not a five-minute stretch has gone by when I could categorize my feeling at the moment as "boring." Clerking in a district court is the most fun job I could ever have imagined.

[Anonymous User]

What kind of grades from a T10 does it take to be competitive? Do 1L grades matter more than 2L or 3L grades in your opinion?

For this court, probably top 10% to be competitve. My judge rarely hires people who don't get profs to call. And if some star student applies for whom the prof didn't call, the judge usually asks us to ask the student to have the references call. And yes, its a district judge. We get so many top 10% applications that we don't even open the LORs/etc. if we don't see that on the top line of the resume.

Sounds cold, but that's the only practical way to wade through 1000s of documents of flattering words.

What do you do for schools without class rank/real grades like Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Berkeley, etc.? I assume students from those schools won't have a line about class rank at the top of the resume. Do you just quickly glance at the transcript to see if it is ballpark competitive?

On a similar note, what are competitive #s of H's/book awards from Stanford?
What about Berkeley and Chicago? (asking for a couple friends/the rest of the board here, sorry)

[Anonymous User]

What kind of grades from a T10 does it take to be competitive? Do 1L grades matter more than 2L or 3L grades in your opinion?

For this court, probably top 10% to be competitve. My judge rarely hires people who don't get profs to call. And if some star student applies for whom the prof didn't call, the judge usually asks us to ask the student to have the references call. And yes, its a district judge. We get so many top 10% applications that we don't even open the LORs/etc. if we don't see that on the top line of the resume.

Sounds cold, but that's the only practical way to wade through 1000s of documents of flattering words.

What do you do for schools without class rank/real grades like Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Berkeley, etc.? I assume students from those schools won't have a line about class rank at the top of the resume. Do you just quickly glance at the transcript to see if it is ballpark competitive?

On a similar note, what are competitive #s of H's/book awards from Stanford?
What about Berkeley and Chicago? (asking for a couple friends/the rest of the board here, sorry)

We get enough applications from each of those schools in this District that it is no problem to compare transcripts between applications and see what the deal is. Seems like my Judge is very partial to Chicago and Stanford, though, for whatever that is worth. You tend to see this kind of school favoritism with some Judges.

[gotmilk?]

Does your judge prefer alums over rising 3Ls?

Any chance you're willing to say which district your judge is on?

[Cade McNown]

Thoughts on applying to Off-Plan judges? Did you interview with any? Any impressions on whether Off-plan hiring criteria tend to be any different (e.g. personal connections matter more/less?; selectivity any higher/lower?; etc.)