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I didn't want to hi-jack the other dude's thread so I started another one.

1) It seems like a decent number of people do them from my schools (it looked like it was a 50/50 split with federal/state clerkships the other year). What are benefits/exit options with a state clerkship?

2) Also, say I want to work in bankruptcy (or so I think). It's pretty obvious if I get can get a circuit clerkship to take it. But if I can't, would a district court clerkship be more or less valuable then clerking for a bankruptcy judge?

3) Finding any clerkship is obviously going to brutal next year. I've read stuff about attorneys going into clerkships after working at a firm. Say worst case scenario, I couldn't find a clerkship next year, what is considered by judges to attorneys that apply for clerkships after a year of working (I say a year because I'm not sure there would much left to gain after a more then a year of practicing)? It seems like people clerk for a lot of different reason (e.g. prospective professors), so I want to think that they would be considering more then how far up the vault ranking the firm you are working for is. So what do they look at?

ttt

XxSpyKEx wrote:I didn't want to hi-jack the other dude's thread so I started another one.

1) It seems like a decent number of people do them from my schools (it looked like it was a 50/50 split with federal/state clerkships the other year). What are benefits/exit options with a state clerkship?

2) Also, say I want to work in bankruptcy (or so I think). It's pretty obvious if I get can get a circuit clerkship to take it. But if I can't, would a district court clerkship be more or less valuable then clerking for a bankruptcy judge?

3) Finding any clerkship is obviously going to brutal next year. I've read stuff about attorneys going into clerkships after working at a firm. Say worst case scenario, I couldn't find a clerkship next year, what is considered by judges to attorneys that apply for clerkships after a year of working (I say a year because I'm not sure there would much left to gain after a more then a year of practicing)? It seems like people clerk for a lot of different reason (e.g. prospective professors), so I want to think that they would be considering more then how far up the vault ranking the firm you are working for is. So what do they look at?

Can't really speak to #1. Although more highly regarded state supreme courts (e.g., MA, CA) likely have decent exit options. They're probably also good if you clerk for the supreme court of the state in which you want to work.

2. If you want to do bankruptcy, then I imagine a bankruptcy clerkship would be more valuable than a district court clerkship. For anything else, district court wins. To hedge your bets (since you seem unsure of bankruptcy), I'd do district court.

3. It's so common these days, that it basically falls back to the same factors that they would have looked at if you were coming straight from law school. The firm factors in mainly through ranking (a Wachtell associate would certainly stand out more than a Stroock associate) and the type of work that you did, if it was interesting. Try to do lots of pro bono. Also, firm might matter if it's the judge's former firm or if you meet people who clerked for a judge and who are willing to give the judge a call on your behalf.