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T-14, somewhere around top 25%, not on LR.

I have done a lot of research on legal academia so I know what I've got to do generally and what the odds look like, but considering I'm probably not competitive for a COA clerkship, would clerking at a Dist Ct help me at all for academia, or should I just go straight to a firm for a few years?

I think my best route right now to academia is to publish, publish, publish. So the biggest benefit I could think of for doing a Dist Ct is that it might give me time to do that. Also, there is always the possibility it leads to a 2nd clerkship at a COA. But are either of those potential benefits worth it?

I think you're looking at this the wrong way. If you're an average law student without much special going for you (e.g. no PhD, no prior publications, no feeder level creds, etc), I don't think it makes sense to make decisions on what is most likely to get you academia because your odds are so long anyways. You should choose whether to pursue clerking based on whether it makes sense with regards to what you would want to do if you weren't able to break into the academy.

Now if you do have something like a PhD going for you then that might change the calculus. I think the ability to have more time to publish would be beneficial (the marginal bump for CoA clerkships is helpful but not really worth clerking specifically for), though I would hazard that not all clerkships are less hours than biglaw. But the odds are that you don't have much that would significantly help your shot at academia and thus I wouldn't make this decision on that basis. And you need to also consider that you may not even have this choice to make; a district court clerkship isn't necessarily that easy to snag with top 1/4 from a T14.

bk1 wrote:I think you're looking at this the wrong way. If you're an average law student without much special going for you (e.g. no PhD, no prior publications, no feeder level creds, etc), I don't think it makes sense to make decisions on what is most likely to get you academia because your odds are so long anyways. You should choose whether to pursue clerking based on whether it makes sense with regards to what you would want to do if you weren't able to break into the academy.

Now if you do have something like a PhD going for you then that might change the calculus. I think the ability to have more time to publish would be beneficial (the marginal bump for CoA clerkships is helpful but not really worth clerking specifically for), though I would hazard that not all clerkships are less hours than biglaw. But the odds are that you don't have much that would significantly help your shot at academia and thus I wouldn't make this decision on that basis. And you need to also consider that you may not even have this choice to make; a district court clerkship isn't necessarily that easy to snag with top 1/4 from a T14.

Thanks. I asked it this way because I don't think I am necessarily interested in clerking unless it would give me a bump for academia. I came into law school wanting to clerk and it interests me and I think I would enjoy it, but I could really only justify the one year delay (because I may end up doing a PhD program after a few years working) and the accompanying salary opportunity cost if it would help me regarding academia.

I think a clerkship can help for academia, in the sense of giving you time to publish (again, depending on the clerkship hours). But if you're going to do a PhD program ultimately, I don't think clerking would be worth it, in that you will have the opportunity to publish doing the PhD (and frankly will probably produce better work at that point) and won't be looking for an academia job till after that anyway. And in terms of what "looks good" for academia, I think a COA looks better than DCt (if you did DCt first you might well find a COA after, but you won't want to take that much time off). But publishing will be more helpful and if you do a PhD you'll have the academic cred that (I think) a COA sometimes lends.

Just want to note that the answer may vary depending on your subfield. In some PhD-dominated subfields especially, traditional credentials like clerkships tend to matter less and publications matter more. Also, you could always clerk during your PhD--a couple of people have recommended after orals and before really starting the dissertation to me as a nice time to do something different. Talk to your professors, especially younger ones, they've been through these decisions.