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I'm a current fed mag clerk who has a district court clerkship lined up afterward. What are some lit boutiques that like to hire clerks? I'm trying to focus on the DC area. My clerkships are not in super prestigious districts like S.D.N.Y./E.D.N.Y., C.D. Cal., D. D.C., or E.D. Va. if that matters.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 10, 2021 2:55 pm

I'm a current fed mag clerk who has a district court clerkship lined up afterward. What are some lit boutiques that like to hire clerks? I'm trying to focus on the DC area. My clerkships are not in super prestigious districts like S.D.N.Y./E.D.N.Y., C.D. Cal., D. D.C., or E.D. Va. if that matters.

I assume you'll be targeting trial court lit boutiques--pretty much all of them hire clerks. Some lit boutiques are insanely competitive, so an important question is sorta what the rest of your profile looks like (e.g., law school). Here are some helpful threads:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=272168
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=147584

Post-clerkship hiring usually starts after Thanksgiving for some more competitive firms, but the vast majority of post-clerkship hiring is concentrated during Jan-March of the final year of your clerkship.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:16 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 10, 2021 2:55 pm

I'm a current fed mag clerk who has a district court clerkship lined up afterward. What are some lit boutiques that like to hire clerks? I'm trying to focus on the DC area. My clerkships are not in super prestigious districts like S.D.N.Y./E.D.N.Y., C.D. Cal., D. D.C., or E.D. Va. if that matters.

I assume you'll be targeting trial court lit boutiques--pretty much all of them hire clerks. Some lit boutiques are insanely competitive, so an important question is sorta what the rest of your profile looks like (e.g., law school). Here are some helpful threads:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=272168
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=147584

Post-clerkship hiring usually starts after Thanksgiving for some more competitive firms, but the vast majority of post-clerkship hiring is concentrated during Jan-March of the final year of your clerkship.

OP here. Thanks for your response. I guess I’m not only targeting lit boutiques but also midlaw shops that like district clerks (I realize the distinction is not all that clear). Is there a resource to find firms like that? Also, I went to a T10 law school (bottom of the top third in my class) and did a stint in biglaw before clerking. I realize that my resume will bar me from ever getting hired at the most elite boutiques, so I’m generally interested in non-biglaw lit firms.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 11, 2021 2:43 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:16 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 10, 2021 2:55 pm

I'm a current fed mag clerk who has a district court clerkship lined up afterward. What are some lit boutiques that like to hire clerks? I'm trying to focus on the DC area. My clerkships are not in super prestigious districts like S.D.N.Y./E.D.N.Y., C.D. Cal., D. D.C., or E.D. Va. if that matters.

I assume you'll be targeting trial court lit boutiques--pretty much all of them hire clerks. Some lit boutiques are insanely competitive, so an important question is sorta what the rest of your profile looks like (e.g., law school). Here are some helpful threads:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=272168
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=147584

Post-clerkship hiring usually starts after Thanksgiving for some more competitive firms, but the vast majority of post-clerkship hiring is concentrated during Jan-March of the final year of your clerkship.

OP here. Thanks for your response. I guess I’m not only targeting lit boutiques but also midlaw shops that like district clerks (I realize the distinction is not all that clear). Is there a resource to find firms like that? Also, I went to a T10 law school (bottom of the top third in my class) and did a stint in biglaw before clerking. I realize that my resume will bar me from ever getting hired at the most elite boutiques, so I’m generally interested in non-biglaw lit firms.

Gotcha. I found this resource--might be a good starting point: https://www.wcl.american.edu/career/doc ... june-2017/

you're barred at the most "elite" boutiques, sure. but other than those, market-paying boutiques are all on the table

Top 1/3rd at a T10, with a fed clerkship and previous biglaw experience, is going to be competitive at tons of lit boutiques in and around DC. And there are tons of them. There are so many to choose from that I think this is a circumstance where reaching out to a DC recruiter in, say, November or December of your last clerkship year would be smart - assuming that clerkship ends in late summer. If not, then you'd probably wanna reach out at least 6 months in advance. Lots of these boutiques hire irregularly so they aren't taking on "classes" annually like a biglaw firm would.

Boutique associate involved in hiring here -- it would be pretty unusual for a clerkship candidate to come through a recruiter, and that's an especially tough sell since we'd be paying both a clerkship bonus AND the recruiter's fee. I can't think of any clerkship candidates we hired over the past several years that came through recruiters, though it is common for our lateral hires. I don't know anything about DC boutiques other than, like, Kellogg, Williams & Connolly, and the elite SCOTUS boutiques, but I presume chambers and partners would give you a good lay of the land; it's roughly accurate for my market. Vault has boutique-specific rankings that I don't find as generally reliable, but it's still a list of firms and that's sort of what you need at this stage in the post-clerkship hiring process. I would not turn to a recruiter until after sending out a bunch of apps to places you find on your own, and specifically make sure they don't send your materials to anywhere you already applied.

Since you are really targeting two different types of shops, you probably need to use two tactics.

As mentioned, recruiters are less common for straight clerkship -> lit "boutique" (although not unheard of, I used a recruiter during my clerkship and ended up w/ interviews and an eventual job at a boutique.) All else being equal, if you're able to apply yourself through letters sent by firms to chambers or just having a list of firms and applying during the winter you'll probably have slightly more success since you're a cheaper hire without the fee.

But for the midlaw firms you mentioned, you almost definitely want to use a recruiter. Most of the "boutiques" seemingly plan to hire one or more associates a year, so they have a more regularly hiring system and target clerks, that isn't really true to the midlaw firms. They might not have an opening any given year, they might not have an opening until a month before your clerkship ends. They might not have an opening at all until they talked into making a hire by a recruiter.

FWIW you did a stint in biglaw so firms should be more willing to pay a recruiter fee for you, firms really balk at the idea of paying to hire someone whose work experience is clerking.