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I know these threads are done to death, but I think my situation MAY be a tad different. I have an interview lined up with the Chief Magistrate Judge of my district, but I may get a federal district interview before then. I know that federal district is more prestigious but it's really not supposed to matter, but does externing for a chief magistrate judge have any benefits over a regular federal district judge that I should consider booking an interview for a federal district judge later? Or at least any information of whether chief magistrate judge matters at all, when comparing them to other magistrates?

Also, a federal appellate judge would also be a consideration too. I applied to all the federal judges in my area, so I'm just trying to be somewhat strategic in picking interview slots.

Anonymous User wrote:I know these threads are done to death, but I think my situation MAY be a tad different. I have an interview lined up with the Chief Magistrate Judge of my district, but I may get a federal district interview before then. I know that federal district is more prestigious but it's really not supposed to matter, but does externing for a chief magistrate judge have any benefits over a regular federal district judge that I should consider booking an interview for a federal district judge later? Or at least any information of whether chief magistrate judge matters at all, when comparing them to other magistrates?

Also, a federal appellate judge would also be a consideration too. I applied to all the federal judges in my area, so I'm just trying to be somewhat strategic in picking interview slots.

It does not matter. It's easy to speak about how a magistrate externship helped you when you interview with firms.

EDIT: Prestige matters for clerkships, not for 1L summer internships.

Chief magistrate judge really isn't going to be any different from ordinary magistrate judge (similarly, chief district court judge/chief justice etc. really isn't going to be any different from the non-chief versions). What sets the chiefs apart from the non-chiefs is that chief judges have a lot more administrative responsibilities completely unrelated to anything you might do as an intern.

It really doesn't matter what order you interview because you're not expected to accept on the spot. Nor should you. Just schedule them all within a week or two of one another and make a decision once you have offers. I waited two weeks to get back to a judge and that was perfectly acceptable (although I was also the first person he offered). For all you know you could only get one offer and all this decision making would be a waste of time and energy.

I externed for a chief magistrate for 2 summers so I know the workload is definitely different between the magistrates and the district court judges. For the most part, the magistrates have half the case load as the district court judges. As long as your magistrate/clerk is pretty cool, you shouldn't be worked that hard. On the other hand, the district court externs got worked a lot harder because of the judge's case load.

Chief magistrate just means really means they get to deal with all the administrative stuff and deal with the petty arguments between magistrates (and more likely, between district court judges and the magistrates).

There is no prestige difference between these positions. If you get an offer from both, pick the one you think you'd like better.

I don't even think most lawyers in your jdx. will even know or care who the chief magistrate is. Take whatever you think makes you feel better.

Original anon here. sorry for the slow response, finals haha. thank you for the info! I figured there was not much of a difference.

I thought you were expected to accept on the spot though. To avoid rejecting a judge..

Anonymous User wrote:I thought you were expected to accept on the spot though. To avoid rejecting a judge..

Much more the case for post-grad clerkships than law school in/externships. Most judges won't offer you an externship on the spot (or if they do, they won't expect an answer right way).

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I thought you were expected to accept on the spot though. To avoid rejecting a judge..

Much more the case for post-grad clerkships than law school in/externships. Most judges won't offer you an externship on the spot (or if they do, they won't expect an answer right way).

While I agree that this is true, when I got a magistrate externship "offer" it was more or less an e-mail asking when I would start working.

I am pleased to advise that we would very much like to have you work as an extern in chambers this summer. When you decide what type of schedule you would like to keep, please talk with [Clerk].

Anonymous User wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I thought you were expected to accept on the spot though. To avoid rejecting a judge..

Much more the case for post-grad clerkships than law school in/externships. Most judges won't offer you an externship on the spot (or if they do, they won't expect an answer right way).

While I agree that this is true, when I got a magistrate externship "offer" it was more or less an e-mail asking when I would start working.

I am pleased to advise that we would very much like to have you work as an extern in chambers this summer. When you decide what type of schedule you would like to keep, please talk with [Clerk].

Well, I did say most. I nearly said, but will add now, it's probably worth considering on the off-chance you run into the on-the-spot situation. (Also, I think one could write back to that "offer" e-mail and decline, for instance, explaining that you had just accepted another position - depending on the timing, this could easily have happened. But it's pretty fait-accompli, to be sure.)

A. Nony Mouse wrote:Well, I did say most. I nearly said, but will add now, it's probably worth considering on the off-chance you run into the on-the-spot situation. (Also, I think one could write back to that "offer" e-mail and decline, for instance, explaining that you had just accepted another position - depending on the timing, this could easily have happened. But it's pretty fait-accompli, to be sure.)

Agreed. When a potential opportunity to work as a paid legal intern for an in-house summer position opened up while I was externing, the judge also encouraged me to take it if I got an offer because she knew that it could lead to a full time job. Her chambers are a little different because she generally only interviews applicants she expects to hire (she takes 2 students on professor recommendations, and saves one spot for an "interesting" candidate), and she responds within 24 hours of the interview. I doubt I would have offended her to take something else before accepting the offer.

Anonymous User wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:Well, I did say most. I nearly said, but will add now, it's probably worth considering on the off-chance you run into the on-the-spot situation. (Also, I think one could write back to that "offer" e-mail and decline, for instance, explaining that you had just accepted another position - depending on the timing, this could easily have happened. But it's pretty fait-accompli, to be sure.)

Agreed. When a potential opportunity to work as a paid legal intern for an in-house summer position opened up while I was externing, the judge also encouraged me to take it if I got an offer because she knew that it could lead to a full time job. Her chambers are a little different because she generally only interviews applicants she expects to hire (she takes 2 students on professor recommendations, and saves one spot for an "interesting" candidate), and she responds within 24 hours of the interview. I doubt I would have offended her to take something else before accepting the offer.

Yeah, I guess a lot of it comes down to knowing your judge (as with so much of this).