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Does anyone in the TLSmosphere have experience jumping to a different firm than the one they summered with after a post-grad clerkship? I summered in Chicago, but will be clerking in San Francisco (where my firm has the tiniest office with no practice groups that appeal to me). Thus, I think that I want to end up at a new firm in the city where I'll be clerking.

What's the process of finding a new firm after I'm done clerking? I know that my judge prohibits me from interviewing until a particular point in time (I think April-ish) and with firms that have matters before my judge. I have no connections to the city. Do I "network" with professionals during my clerkship year, or massmail once my judge greenlights, or do firms proactively reach out to clerks?

I know that there are plusses and minuses (one big minus-risk is that my summer firm finds out about my scheming and gives me the book). Does anyone (who has actually gone through this process) have any experiences they care to share? You can PM me if you wish.

Thanks.

If you're smart enough to clerk, you should be smart enough to be quiet about your search. Assuming you're at an Article III job, you should have plenty of interest from other firms in April or whenever the judge allows you to submit resumes. I'm not sure what the formal process is, but I'd think you just send resumes out to firms you're interested in after the date passes.

Borg wrote:If you're smart enough to clerk, you should be smart enough to be quiet about your search. Assuming you're at an Article III job, you should have plenty of interest from other firms in April or whenever the judge allows you to submit resumes. I'm not sure what the formal process is, but I'd think you just send resumes out to firms you're interested in after the date passes.

I'm trying to determine what "formal process[es]" and informal processes people have successfully used in the past given that there's no OCI and firms generally know class capacity after giving offers for that particular summer.

You might want to check out the clerkship forum, too - there's some helpful discussion in the job search thread there.

cool stuff, thanks.