Difficulty of getting fed court staff attorney position Forum

[poweradezero]

How hard is it? Do they consider ur gpa, law review etc?

[Anonymous User]

My understanding is that some courts call this position staff attorney, some call it pro se clerk. Either way, it's a lot easier to get than a clerkship, but it seems like in more desirable locations they'll still be fairly competitive.

[Anonymous User]

What kind of opportunities does a staff atty/pro se clerk open up in the future? Do they expect you to work there long-term, or do they expect you to leave after a couple years?

[conn09]

What kind of opportunities does a staff atty/pro se clerk open up in the future? Do they expect you to work there long-term, or do they expect you to leave after a couple years?

Not as great as you'd think considering how hard it is to get.

[Anonymous User]

What kind of opportunities does a staff atty/pro se clerk open up in the future? Do they expect you to work there long-term, or do they expect you to leave after a couple years?

I think some of these positions are term (a year or two) and some are permanent. I think thI conventional wisdom is that the exit options aren't great. Essentially you are working on the most mundane, boring cases in the relevant court. You may build up a specialty in some particular kind of case-like pro se cases or habeas cases-that don't really translate particularly well outside of the federal courts. As a long term job it is probably not that bad besides the relatively boring work, but probably won't open crazy doors in the future.

[Anonymous User]

What kind of opportunities does a staff atty/pro se clerk open up in the future? Do they expect you to work there long-term, or do they expect you to leave after a couple years?

I think some of these positions are term (a year or two) and some are permanent. I think thI conventional wisdom is that the exit options aren't great. Essentially you are working on the most mundane, boring cases in the relevant court. You may build up a specialty in some particular kind of case-like pro se cases or habeas cases-that don't really translate particularly well outside of the federal courts. As a long term job it is probably not that bad besides the relatively boring work, but probably won't open crazy doors in the future.

In the courts where I worked, these were permanent - in the federal district court, working on habeas or pro se (especially prisoner) cases. In the federal system, it's decent money for reasonable hours and fairly low stress - it's likely to be a very 9-5 kind of job, and I know the people in my court liked/respected the staff attorneys (state courts will pay a lot less). It's true that it's not going to be exciting cases, and it will be pretty much all research and writing (and pretty quickly a lot of boilerplate, I'm sure - there are only so many ways you can respond to standard pro se prisoner cases), which for some people is a plus and others a minus (not a lot of variety or working with any other people). To be honest, a lot of the staff attorneys I know of were women with kids, because it was a very family-friendly/work-life-balance job.

I know some of the federal COAs particularly have term staff attorneys and these seem much more like law-clerk-lite positions - I'm sure again that they're working on very routine matters, but I suspect there's a bit more variety than being a habeas/pro se clerk at a district court. At my state COA, the staff attorneys were permanent and specialized in certain appeals - domestic relations, worker's comp, social security, etc.

The term positions may operate a bit more like clerkships but I honestly don't know where you'd exit to if you did a staff position for 5-10 years - the staff attorneys I know either stayed in their jobs or maybe went to be career clerks somewhere. I don't know of any who went to firms.

[Anonymous User]

What kind of opportunities does a staff atty/pro se clerk open up in the future? Do they expect you to work there long-term, or do they expect you to leave after a couple years?

Not as great as you'd think considering how hard it is to get.

So there's no way to transition into other fed roles (like AUSA, fed clerkships, etc.) from there?

[blahblewblah]

What kind of opportunities does a staff atty/pro se clerk open up in the future? Do they expect you to work there long-term, or do they expect you to leave after a couple years?

Not as great as you'd think considering how hard it is to get.

So there's no way to transition into other fed roles (like AUSA, fed clerkships, etc.) from there?

It is probably pretty unlikely (unless you have the credentials for those kinds of positions in the first place). Generally, the skills are just not super desirable.

[Anonymous User]

So basically there is no benefit to being a pro se clerk unless you want easy hours or easy work? Or are there some cool aspects to the job that haven't been listed yet?

[Anonymous User]

So basically there is no benefit to being a pro se clerk unless you want easy hours or easy work? Or are there some cool aspects to the job that haven't been listed yet?

If you like working independently, writing and research, routine, and working behind the scenes in the court system (you'd get to know judges and clerks), you'll like the job. Also if you take satisfaction in resolving conflicts - you're the part of the system that actually decides what to do about cases, rather than arguing about what should happen. Having a job you like is a benefit. And I think in the federal system the money's pretty decent.

[Anonymous User]

So basically there is no benefit to being a pro se clerk unless you want easy hours or easy work? Or are there some cool aspects to the job that haven't been listed yet?

If you like working independently, writing and research, routine, and working behind the scenes in the court system (you'd get to know judges and clerks), you'll like the job. Also if you take satisfaction in resolving conflicts - you're the part of the system that actually decides what to do about cases, rather than arguing about what should happen. Having a job you like is a benefit. And I think in the federal system the money's pretty decent.

Ehh, not sure about the bolded. At the CoA that I clerked for, staff attorneys would occasionally make presentations to judges over the phone, but little to no in person contact and, again, these are the relatively mundane and boring cases. Also, the CoA staff attorneys rarely interact with clerks. At the district court that I clerked for, neither the judge nor clerks had much interaction directly with the staff attorneys. So in my experience, you probably wouldn't get to know the judges or clerks very well, at least in a meaningful way.

[Anonymous User]

It's not like clerking for a judge, no, but at the district court where I clerked everyone knew the two pro se clerks. That may have been because they were permanent and had been there a long time, though.