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I'm interning for a federal judge at the district court level. I was given substantive work and it seems like the clerks want me to take initiative and write a memo on a new case. Is this common? Most of my friends with other judges are doing jurisdiction checks. I appreciate the work as it's really engaging but it's a little intimidating and I have little guidance on how to do a good job other than what I've learned during 1L. I've been working diligently but haven't been working as fast as I would like. I figure I'll adjust soon as today was only my second day. I appreciate all advice on how to do a great job interning and how to move forward.

Lots of good advice here.

I don't think there's much to do besides what you're already doing, which is trying your best and being open to guidance, feedback, and advice. One definitive rule I feel I can safely give you is to be sure to be frank about your progress on stuff. Never lie about how far along you are on a project, no matter how embarrassed you are by the truth or how much you believe you can still meet the deadline. And if they give you a deadline to finish and you have reason to believe you won't make it, notify them promptly. Definitely don't wait until the deadline to tell them.

Also, I wouldn't just guess that they want you to write a memo. It should be very clear to you what they want you to do. If you aren't sure, ask. Even if you feel sure that you should be writing a memo, you wouldn't want to be writing it without the clerks' guidance on aspects like scope, format, and deadline.

Finally, considering that your only experience is your 1L classes, be aware that you are probably god awful at legal research and that there are likely much more efficient ways to get the information that you're spinning your wheels on. You might spend some of your time looking at research guides for the areas of law you're researching or consulting your school's law library for guidance on improving your research skills. But mostly I mention this just so that you'll know to cut yourself a break. It's natural that the clerks will be doing things at 5x your pace. They have more confidence in what they're doing, they're more familiar with the law in general, and their legal research skills are probably much more developed.

Good luck with your externship.

Edit: the thread posted above is much more helpful than my post. Let that take precedence.

I did not extern for federal judge after my 1L, but I did however extern for an appellate judge, so take this experience with that in mind. I was assigned two bench memos within my first week, one was a tax case (no class work in tax at that point) and the other was a criminal law case. So being assigned substantive writing assignments in your first few weeks is not abnormal, and it is likely being used to gauge what your competency level is. If you do really well, they'll likely assign you more bench memos. If you don't do that well, you will probably be assigned less glamorous work.