X school because you want to Clerk! Forum

[09042014]

Anyone saying this is just fucking stupid. Clerking is a one year temp job, not a realistic career choice. HLS because you can totes clerk! Shut you imbecile.

[imnottelling]

Anyone saying this is just fucking stupid. Clerking is a one year temp job, not a realistic career choice. HLS because you can totes clerk! Shut you imbecile.

Exactly. Regardless of the fact that schools that place clerks well also place everything else well, the clerkship bonuses that many big law firms give out, the opportunity to watch some of the best (and worst) litigators for a year and improve my research and writing, the networking opportunities with other clerks, and having a year to more realistically scrutinize potential employers -- what a total load of crap allowing such factors help you to make a law school decision is!

[PrideandGlory1776]

Not so fast - if you want to go into academia clerking is not just a throw away its the sine qua non - every time your introduced for the rest of your life they say Professor X or Dean X clerked for so and so on in the X District of Y and then followed that up with a CoA or SCOTUS for the Honorable Judge Z. Your role on the law review and your clerkships stick with you for life the rest doesn't matter 30 years from now getting LR and prestigious clerkship is for life. If a school offers a better shot at it and legal scholarship is a real possibility (especially if you already have a Graduate Degree or will be pursuing another one) it should most definitely be a factor.

[ClerkAdvisor]

Anyone saying this is just fucking stupid. Clerking is a one year temp job, not a realistic career choice. HLS because you can totes clerk! Shut you imbecile.

Exactly. Regardless of the fact that schools that place clerks well also place everything else well, the clerkship bonuses that many big law firms give out, the opportunity to watch some of the best (and worst) litigators for a year and improve my research and writing, the networking opportunities with other clerks, and having a year to more realistically scrutinize potential employers -- what a total load of crap allowing such factors help you to make a law school decision is!

I think you're missing DF's point -- there are plenty of people here who try to pick a school based on the career goal of a term clerkship. A term clerkship is merely a very short stepping stone, and people should be picking schools based on long-term career goals...

[ClerkAdvisor]

Not so fast - if you want to go into academia clerking is not just a throw away its the sine qua non - every time your introduced for the rest of your life they say Professor X or Dean X clerked for so and so on in the X District of Y and then followed that up with a CoA or SCOTUS for the Honorable Judge Z. Your role on the law review and your clerkships stick with you for life the rest doesn't matter 30 years from now getting LR and prestigious clerkship is for life. If a school offers a better shot at it and legal scholarship is a real possibility (especially if you already have a Graduate Degree or will be pursuing another one) it should most definitely be a factor.

Not really... Academia is far more about publishing and publishing potential. And, honestly, if you want to be a prof now, a 2 year stint as a corporate associate at a V5 followed by a climenko or bigelow with a research focus on corporate topics will probably give you a better shot at academia than a couple clerkships...

[PrideandGlory1776]

Not so fast - if you want to go into academia clerking is not just a throw away its the sine qua non - every time your introduced for the rest of your life they say Professor X or Dean X clerked for so and so on in the X District of Y and then followed that up with a CoA or SCOTUS for the Honorable Judge Z. Your role on the law review and your clerkships stick with you for life the rest doesn't matter 30 years from now getting LR and prestigious clerkship is for life. If a school offers a better shot at it and legal scholarship is a real possibility (especially if you already have a Graduate Degree or will be pursuing another one) it should most definitely be a factor.

Not really... Academia is far more about publishing and publishing potential. And, honestly, if you want to be a prof now, a 2 year stint as a corporate associate at a V5 followed by a climenko or bigelow with a research focus on corporate topics will probably give you a better shot at academia than a couple clerkships...

That's true publishing is the deciding factor no doubt - but you don't get in the door without the LR and clerkship those are prerequisites not add-ons. I would venture to guess there's not 5 professors with named Professorship positions anywhere in the top-14 without Federal Clerkships on their resume. I could be wrong but if that's the case it seems to me that Clerking isn't not merely a either big law or clerkship option you can feel free to pass on - if you pass on article III clerkship you can also pretty much kiss your remote hopes of cracking into the impossibly competitive and impenetrable field of legal scholarship goodbye as well.

[ansteam]

Not so fast - if you want to go into academia clerking is not just a throw away its the sine qua non - every time your introduced for the rest of your life they say Professor X or Dean X clerked for so and so on in the X District of Y and then followed that up with a CoA or SCOTUS for the Honorable Judge Z. Your role on the law review and your clerkships stick with you for life the rest doesn't matter 30 years from now getting LR and prestigious clerkship is for life. If a school offers a better shot at it and legal scholarship is a real possibility (especially if you already have a Graduate Degree or will be pursuing another one) it should most definitely be a factor.

Not really... Academia is far more about publishing and publishing potential. And, honestly, if you want to be a prof now, a 2 year stint as a corporate associate at a V5 followed by a climenko or bigelow with a research focus on corporate topics will probably give you a better shot at academia than a couple clerkships...

That's true publishing is the deciding factor no doubt - but you don't get in the door without the LR and clerkship those are prerequisites not add-ons. I would venture to guess there's not 5 professors with named Professorship positions anywhere in the top-14 without Federal Clerkships on their resume. I could be wrong but if that's the case it seems to me that Clerking isn't not merely a either big law or clerkship option you can feel free to pass on - if you pass on article III clerkship you can also pretty much kiss your remote hopes of cracking into the impossibly competitive and impenetrable field of legal scholarship goodbye as well.

Clerking isn't a "prerequisite" for academia. 50% of the entry-level hires for tenure track positions in 2013 didn't clerk: http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblaw ... eport.html.

[downinDtown]

Not so fast - if you want to go into academia clerking is not just a throw away its the sine qua non - every time your introduced for the rest of your life they say Professor X or Dean X clerked for so and so on in the X District of Y and then followed that up with a CoA or SCOTUS for the Honorable Judge Z. Your role on the law review and your clerkships stick with you for life the rest doesn't matter 30 years from now getting LR and prestigious clerkship is for life. If a school offers a better shot at it and legal scholarship is a real possibility (especially if you already have a Graduate Degree or will be pursuing another one) it should most definitely be a factor.

Not really... Academia is far more about publishing and publishing potential. And, honestly, if you want to be a prof now, a 2 year stint as a corporate associate at a V5 followed by a climenko or bigelow with a research focus on corporate topics will probably give you a better shot at academia than a couple clerkships...

As an aside about publishing, after having read the crap I had to cite check/edit/review during my time on law review, I've determined that most academics' ability to assemble a cogent, compelling (and well-written) article is close to zero, and with so many law reviews out there, how can you not get published eventually? Who came up with the idea that writing 150-page articles about obscure topics was a good idea??? No one likes to read them, they must suck to write, and very few are actually influential, interesting, or change anyone's idea about the way law is. Everyone talks about how biglaw sucks, but academia (besides the hours) sounds much, much worse.

[beepboopbeep]

Not really... Academia is far more about publishing and publishing potential. And, honestly, if you want to be a prof now, a 2 year stint as a corporate associate at a V5 followed by a climenko or bigelow with a research focus on corporate topics will probably give you a better shot at academia than a couple clerkships...

That's true publishing is the deciding factor no doubt - but you don't get in the door without the LR and clerkship those are prerequisites not add-ons. I would venture to guess there's not 5 professors with named Professorship positions anywhere in the top-14 without Federal Clerkships on their resume. I could be wrong but if that's the case it seems to me that Clerking isn't not merely a either big law or clerkship option you can feel free to pass on - if you pass on article III clerkship you can also pretty much kiss your remote hopes of cracking into the impossibly competitive and impenetrable field of legal scholarship goodbye as well.

0L, right?

If you're thinking about teaching in the t14, you'd better be an impossibly brilliant scholar. The Cooleys and Golden Gates and Cal Westerns of the world hire people who graduated magna from HYS, CoA clerks, Bigelow fellows. Ansteam's got the link I was going to post.

[84651846190]

Not so fast - if you want to go into academia clerking is not just a throw away its the sine qua non - every time your introduced for the rest of your life they say Professor X or Dean X clerked for so and so on in the X District of Y and then followed that up with a CoA or SCOTUS for the Honorable Judge Z. Your role on the law review and your clerkships stick with you for life the rest doesn't matter 30 years from now getting LR and prestigious clerkship is for life. If a school offers a better shot at it and legal scholarship is a real possibility (especially if you already have a Graduate Degree or will be pursuing another one) it should most definitely be a factor.

Not really... Academia is far more about publishing and publishing potential. And, honestly, if you want to be a prof now, a 2 year stint as a corporate associate at a V5 followed by a climenko or bigelow with a research focus on corporate topics will probably give you a better shot at academia than a couple clerkships...

That's true publishing is the deciding factor no doubt - but you don't get in the door without the LR and clerkship those are prerequisites not add-ons. I would venture to guess there's not 5 professors with named Professorship positions anywhere in the top-14 without Federal Clerkships on their resume. I could be wrong but if that's the case it seems to me that Clerking isn't not merely a either big law or clerkship option you can feel free to pass on - if you pass on article III clerkship you can also pretty much kiss your remote hopes of cracking into the impossibly competitive and impenetrable field of legal scholarship goodbye as well.

There are two paths to academia:

1) Getting insanely good grades at a top law school and serving on your school's flagship LR.
2) Becoming an expert in a field--and preferably getting a PhD--and publishing a shitload of noteworthy articles in top flight publications.

Clerking is an added "plus," especially for option 1), but is by no means necessary for breaking into academia, unless you're talking about T14 academia. But lol @ u if you're planning on being a T14 law prof as a 0L. The odds of this are extremely long, even for YLS grads.

[84651846190]

Anyone saying this is just fucking stupid. Clerking is a one year temp job, not a realistic career choice. HLS because you can totes clerk! Shut you imbecile.

Exactly. Regardless of the fact that schools that place clerks well also place everything else well, the clerkship bonuses that many big law firms give out, the opportunity to watch some of the best (and worst) litigators for a year and improve my research and writing, the networking opportunities with other clerks, and having a year to more realistically scrutinize potential employers -- what a total load of crap allowing such factors help you to make a law school decision is!

1) You basically break even (if you're lucky) when you consider clerking and then getting a clerkship bonus at a big firm vs. working at a big firm without clerking.

2) The opportunity to improve your research and writing skills is a legitimate plus, but some people already have good research and writing skills (and most people who don't probably won't get hired by judges as clerks anyway).

3) The networking opportunities at a big firm are arguably better than while you're a clerk because you interact with a lot more people at a big firm. As a clerk, you're interacting with chambers staff and the 2-3 other clerks over the course of your clerkship whereas you interact with dozens of attorneys at your and other firms working in biglaw. I suppose you could proactively reach out to the attorneys who have cases before your judge as a clerk, but there are ethical risks to schmoozing with people who have cases before your judge.

4) More often than not, clerks are going back to the firms they summered at, especially in this economy. Just take a look in the judicial clerkship lounge and you'll find a bunch of clerks with top credentials struggling to land firm jobs at firms they didn't summer at.

[worldtraveler]

I think some people think they just should want to work because it's prestigious and everyone tells them they should want to. Completely agree with DF on this point.

[09042014]

Anyone saying this is just fucking stupid. Clerking is a one year temp job, not a realistic career choice. HLS because you can totes clerk! Shut you imbecile.

Exactly. Regardless of the fact that schools that place clerks well also place everything else well, the clerkship bonuses that many big law firms give out, the opportunity to watch some of the best (and worst) litigators for a year and improve my research and writing, the networking opportunities with other clerks, and having a year to more realistically scrutinize potential employers -- what a total load of crap allowing such factors help you to make a law school decision is!

People on TLS spout this bullshit quite often when its 30k at U of C v. 150k at NW. "OH YOU WANNA CLERK, BETTER GET YOUR HYDE PARK ON."

I'm not arguing that clerking is or isn't worth it, but it's not enough to be a significant factor in a choice of law schools. You clerkship gunners can polish each others knobs all you want. It's still a one year part of your career.

[09042014]

Not so fast - if you want to go into academia clerking is not just a throw away its the sine qua non - every time your introduced for the rest of your life they say Professor X or Dean X clerked for so and so on in the X District of Y and then followed that up with a CoA or SCOTUS for the Honorable Judge Z. Your role on the law review and your clerkships stick with you for life the rest doesn't matter 30 years from now getting LR and prestigious clerkship is for life. If a school offers a better shot at it and legal scholarship is a real possibility (especially if you already have a Graduate Degree or will be pursuing another one) it should most definitely be a factor.

1)Like people have said, this isn't even true.

2) Academia is a remote possibility so it's still a really fucking stupid gameplan.

3) Schools with more than a cunthair chance at academia are the schools that already placewell for clerkship.

[jbagelboy]

Thank you DF. It's amusing but pathetic to watch the 0Ls advise each other on how much more one top school is worth than another if the "end goal" is a federal clerkship. I crack up now every time I see it (and when people make bullcrap decisions as a result).

Wanting the opportunity to clerk is one thing: it can be a valuable experience for many career trajectories in law. Thinking a single digit percentage difference in clerkship placement looking only at the year after graduation irrefutably establishes school X has value exceeding school Y by tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars & necessarily offers a more magical career as a result, then trotting it about as dogma, is whole other load of crap.

[A. Nony Mouse]

But DF didn't say clerkships were irrelevant. He said people shouldn't gun for a specific school based on its clerkship placement.

[20141023]

.

[Blessedassurance]

Anyone saying this is just fucking stupid. Clerking is a one year temp job, not a realistic career choice. HLS because you can totes clerk! Shut you imbecile.

Exactly. Regardless of the fact that schools that place clerks well also place everything else well, the clerkship bonuses that many big law firms give out, the opportunity to watch some of the best (and worst) litigators for a year and improve my research and writing, the networking opportunities with other clerks, and having a year to more realistically scrutinize potential employers -- what a total load of crap allowing such factors help you to make a law school decision is!

why is networking with other clerks notable or distinct from any other networking (e.g., networking with your co-workers at a law firm)?

in general, you still lose money when it's all said and done, even with the clerkship bonus. a better excuse is because you "enjoy clerking for its sake" etc. admittedly, there are firms that "value" federal clerkships and make that a selling point (irell, munger etc.). then again irell hired 3 summers each from loyola and usc for 2014 (that's as many as it hired from harvard/stanford, and 1 fewer than it hired from chicago. there were no yale grads). see http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/s ... mit=Search

realistically scrutinize potential employers? how?

[Blessedassurance]

Not so fast - if you want to go into academia clerking is not just a throw away its the sine qua non - every time your introduced for the rest of your life they say Professor X or Dean X clerked for so and so on in the X District of Y and then followed that up with a CoA or SCOTUS for the Honorable Judge Z. Your role on the law review and your clerkships stick with you for life the rest doesn't matter 30 years from now getting LR and prestigious clerkship is for life. If a school offers a better shot at it and legal scholarship is a real possibility (especially if you already have a Graduate Degree or will be pursuing another one) it should most definitely be a factor.

law review and clerkships are separate issues here.

secondly, the bolded is not true. See http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblaw ... ng-report/

note in the above that 50% didn't do clerkships. it will be a good idea for legal academia aspirants (which seems to be everyone and their mom on tls these days) to spend some time with the data in general.

i suspect academia is only going to get fiercer and fiercer for obvious reasons but that is another discussion.

edit: scooped. i see someone else is doing good work in this thread.

[Borhas]

I think the networking opportunities of clerking are more than just your judge and the 2-3 clerks in chambers; you have a built-in network with the judge's former clerks and future clerks, and a judge offers totally different kinds of connections than you'd get at one year in a law firm. And there are employment opportunities (AUSA, boutiques) that in practice require clerking.

But that's a little removed from DF's original point. I guess if everything else is equal about the schools you're considering, looking at clerkship placement is fine as a tiebreaker. And usually schools with better clerkship placement have better everything-else-placement, so it's not like going to the more-clerkships school will hurt your employment chances. But I agree that you do have to think about what you want a clerkship to accomplish for you, rather than aim for the clerkship as an end in itself. (Or: clerking can be an end in itself, because it is usually a good experience. But you still have to choose a law schools based on what else you want to do.)

Clerkship gunners are literally the worst people in or from law school

I wouldn't want to be associated with them even if they can theoretically connect me to some gunner opportunity

[84651846190]

I think the networking opportunities of clerking are more than just your judge and the 2-3 clerks in chambers; you have a built-in network with the judge's former clerks and future clerks, and a judge offers totally different kinds of connections than you'd get at one year in a law firm. And there are employment opportunities (AUSA, boutiques) that in practice require clerking.

But that's a little removed from DF's original point. I guess if everything else is equal about the schools you're considering, looking at clerkship placement is fine as a tiebreaker. And usually schools with better clerkship placement have better everything-else-placement, so it's not like going to the more-clerkships school will hurt your employment chances. But I agree that you do have to think about what you want a clerkship to accomplish for you, rather than aim for the clerkship as an end in itself. (Or: clerking can be an end in itself, because it is usually a good experience. But you still have to choose a law schools based on what else you want to do.)

Clerkship gunners are literally the worst people in or from law school

I wouldn't want to be associated with them even if they can theoretically connect me to some gunner opportunity

TBF, these are the type of people who make the best lawyers: people who strive for the sake of striving. You need people like this to actually give a shit about your case and take stuff seriously when they are making seven figures as biglaw partners (when any sane person would quit the legal profession altogether and open a surf shop or something).

[ph14]

Anyone saying this is just fucking stupid. Clerking is a one year temp job, not a realistic career choice. HLS because you can totes clerk! Shut you imbecile.

Exactly. Regardless of the fact that schools that place clerks well also place everything else well, the clerkship bonuses that many big law firms give out, the opportunity to watch some of the best (and worst) litigators for a year and improve my research and writing, the networking opportunities with other clerks, and having a year to more realistically scrutinize potential employers -- what a total load of crap allowing such factors help you to make a law school decision is!

why is networking with other clerks notable or distinct from any other networking (e.g., networking with your co-workers at a law firm)?

in general, you still lose money when it's all said and done, even with the clerkship bonus. a better excuse is because you "enjoy clerking for its sake" etc. admittedly, there are firms that "value" federal clerkships and make that a selling point (irell, munger etc.). then again irell hired 3 summers each from loyola and usc for 2014 (that's as many as it hired from harvard/stanford, and 1 fewer than it hired from chicago. there were no yale grads). see http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/s ... mit=Search

realistically scrutinize potential employers? how?

Is that data offers or just people who summered at the firm? Because they might have different yield rates from Loyola/USC and Harvard/Stanford, making that comparison not super useful.

[Anonymous User]

secondly, the bolded is not true. See --LinkRemoved-- ... ng-report/

note in the above that 50% didn't do clerkships. it will be a good idea for legal academia aspirants (which seems to be everyone and their mom on tls these days) to spend some time with the data in general.

Pretty much nobody who doesn't clerk gets academia UNLESS you also have a PhD. There are maybe enough special circumstances to account for 10-15% of the total hires in a given year, but 85-90% of the hires did either a clerkship or a PhD. So, yea, clerkships are pretty much a requirement for anyone hoping to go into academia who doesn't also want to get a PhD.

I've clerked and seen the post-clerkship job market and I think there are good reasons to want to clerk, and to prioritize clerking in choosing between schools (especially YS which really are in their own category when it comes to securing a clerkship). Clerking allows you an unusual amount of flexibility in choosing/changing law firm jobs (which is normally far more difficult a year out of law school), it does open a number of doors that would not otherwise have been opened, and is just a darn cool experience. As someone who believes strongly in the value of experiences for experience's sake, I think it's arguably one of the best things you can do as a lawyer. But for others -- especially for those who just want to be a lawyer and make money, endstop, the possibility of clerking may not always be worth sacrificing tens of thousands of dollars in scholarship money for. But I did, and I don't regret it for one second.

On a final note, the poster who said that the folks who clerk generally already have excellent research and writing skills is probably correct. In my experience, my co-clerks have been far better at researching and writing than the litigators who come in front of the court (even the biglaw litigators). But it's false to assume that there isn't, therefore, any reason to clerk. I have grown more as a researcher and as a writer in my year(s) of clerking than in all of law school combined. Even having started clerking pretty solid in those departments, I nevertheless have had TONS of room to grow (as, I am sure, I still do).

[IAFG]

Clerkships, from SCOTUS on down, are incredibly overvalued on TLS and by law students in general.

[rpupkin]

Clerkships, from SCOTUS on down, are incredibly overvalued on TLS and by law students in general.

An older partner at my firm is amused by how an Article III clerkship has become this prestige prize. He went to HLS in the 70s. Back then, he said, there were a few highly sought after clerkships (SCOTUS, D.C. Cir., SDNY). But clerking in some remote district court or COA was something you did when you didn't have the grades for big law. It wasn't considered prestigious and students generally didn't want to do it unless they had to. These days, he shakes his head when he sees a YLS or HLS student scratch and claw for a district court clerkship in Missouri or Alabama.