Del Chancery clerkship for transactional lawyer? Forum

[wldecisions]

Is there any significant merit to clerking at Delaware Chancery that outweighs foregone salary if you have zero intention of doing litigation down the road (think M&A, EC/VC, etc)? For context, I'm a law student who had to do a good amount of Del Ch docket search as part of RAing for a prof and found it surprisingly interesting.

[The Lsat Airbender]

It's a cool resume item, you could network with clerk alumni but no, probably not going to be much (if at all) better for your professional development than spending that year at a firm. This is the kind of thing you do because you want to and won't miss the money.

[wldecisions]

It's a cool resume item, you could network with clerk alumni but no, probably not going to be much (if at all) better for your professional development than spending that year at a firm. This is the kind of thing you do because you want to and won't miss the money.

That makes sense, thank you for responding. Pay aside, do you think there is any knowledge/skill to be gained that would be applicable to transactional practice?

[The Lsat Airbender]

It's a cool resume item, you could network with clerk alumni but no, probably not going to be much (if at all) better for your professional development than spending that year at a firm. This is the kind of thing you do because you want to and won't miss the money.

That makes sense, thank you for responding. Pay aside, do you think there is any knowledge/skill to be gained that would be applicable to transactional practice?

Seeing this kind of litigation play out, you'd get some high-level perspective on what the stakes are when fighting over a MAE clause or the wording of SEC disclosures, so that's cool. It's helpful indirectly to know the "why" behind all the little legal requirements of a successful deal.

But you're not going to learn any of the day-to-day skills involved in corporate practice. That's the problem with clerkships generally for people who want to do transactional biglaw.