Best and worst judges to clerk for Forum

[Anonymous User]

Anyone knows what kind of clerks bumatay hires? Like top tier grades from top tier schools plus fed soc? Or

Supposedly he's trying to become a feeder (though I don't think he's fed any yet) so he's pretty aggressive about top grades/top school. I was reasonably competitive for COA clerkships at HYS and was specifically told Bumatay would be a pretty severe reach (same with Bress, fwiw).

Bress is definitely trying to be a feeder and is very picky looking for SCOTUS-caliber applicants

Can confirm.

I've also heard this about Bress. Haven't heard of Bumatay being as picky (more that he cares about ideology), but it's always possible that he's changing things up.

Bress prioritizes grades, Bumatay prioritizes ideology/personality. But Bumatay's applicant pool has gotten bigger/better every year, at least from our chapter, so he's pickier than before. Bress always had interest from the students with top grades. Very different clerkships, from what I gather.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone on the First Circuit to avoid?

[Anonymous User]

Anyone on the First Circuit to avoid?

The obvious answer is Lynch.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone on the First Circuit to avoid?

On a similar note, any intel on what Rikelman is like?

[Anonymous User]

Anyone on the First Circuit to avoid?

On a similar note, any intel on what Rikelman is like?

I have very little direct intel, but she seems like a thoughtful judge. It also appears that her clerks are required to be very responsive throughout the day, which I’m not sure if that means that they work a lot/have to respond immediately to emails like a BigLaw associate.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone on the First Circuit to avoid?

On a similar note, any intel on what Rikelman is like?

I have very little direct intel, but she seems like a thoughtful judge. It also appears that her clerks are required to be very responsive throughout the day, which I’m not sure if that means that they work a lot/have to respond immediately to emails like a BigLaw associate.

I’ve heard it’s quite a bit of work. But I also am sure she’s a nice judge and boss. I’d expect that it means her clerks just have to write really long bench memos, and it might take a while to get opinions out.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone on the First Circuit to avoid?

On a similar note, any intel on what Rikelman is like?

I have very little direct intel, but she seems like a thoughtful judge. It also appears that her clerks are required to be very responsive throughout the day, which I’m not sure if that means that they work a lot/have to respond immediately to emails like a BigLaw associate.

I’ve heard it’s quite a bit of work. But I also am sure she’s a nice judge and boss. I’d expect that it means her clerks just have to write really long bench memos, and it might take a while to get opinions out.

That confirms the little that I know. I can attest to her speed. She manages to issue very comprehensive drafts on cases in a quick amount of time. (To be fair, the First Circuit’s caseload is tiny compared to its peers. But it’s still impressive.)

[Anonymous User]

Anyone on the First Circuit to avoid?

The obvious answer is Lynch.

And that's the only one unless one of the newbies is problematic. Can confirm that Barron, Kayatta, Gelpi, Howard, and Thompson are all good clerkships. Gelpi in particular is a delightful person.

[Anonymous User]

Ditto as to Gelpí. Heard it’s a very chill experience.

[Anonymous User]

Ditto as to Gelpí. Heard it’s a very chill experience.

This is reflected in the quality of his work product

[Anonymous User]

Ditto as to Gelpí. Heard it’s a very chill experience.

This is reflected in the quality of his work product

Delete

[Anonymous User]

Anyone on the First Circuit to avoid?

The obvious answer is Lynch.

And that's the only one unless one of the newbies is problematic. Can confirm that Barron, Kayatta, Gelpi, Howard, and Thompson are all good clerkships. Gelpi in particular is a delightful person.

In terms of being nice, I've heard good things about Montecalvo and Rikelman as well.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone on the First Circuit to avoid?

The obvious answer is Lynch.

And that's the only one unless one of the newbies is problematic. Can confirm that Barron, Kayatta, Gelpi, Howard, and Thompson are all good clerkships. Gelpi in particular is a delightful person.

In terms of being nice, I've heard good things about Montecalvo and Rikelman as well.

Second Montecalvo and Barron as normal/nice people

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone have any word on what Nina Morrison's like as a judge? EDNY.

Any information on this?

[Anonymous User]

Gelpi’s clerks seemed very mediocre last term. Their work product was very poor. Agreed with the poster above…he’s so chill, you can literally produce subpar work and he won’t even notice (he’s also an intellectual lightweight so not unsurprising).

[Anonymous User]

Anyone knows what kind of clerks bumatay hires? Like top tier grades from top tier schools plus fed soc? Or

Supposedly he's trying to become a feeder (though I don't think he's fed any yet) so he's pretty aggressive about top grades/top school. I was reasonably competitive for COA clerkships at HYS and was specifically told Bumatay would be a pretty severe reach (same with Bress, fwiw).

I don't think this is true at all. I graduated fairly recently and his focus was very heavily on fed soc ties. He even hired a classmate after just his first semester grades.

I was FedSoc board and (roughly) top-third at HYS, and told that was insufficient (the specific words, from someone who would definitely know, was "probably disqualifying") for Bumatay earlier this year. Meanwhile other moderately-grade-sensitive COAs were more than willing to interview me.

Edit: also, I do think there's a distinction between 1L hires and later hires. Lots of FedSoc judges hire based on stellar 1L grades and then the future clerks slack off, while later hires are held to a consistently high standard.

Well whoever told you that lied, or things have changed in a year. One of my recent classmates clerked for him and he earned a grade at least once below a “pass,” which is an exceptionally hard thing to do at my hys. like it’s almost unfathomable how that happened. More likely to graduate w straight Hs—that’s how rare. So he was certainly not even top half, and obviously so. Butamaya likes fedsoc!

[Anonymous User]

Anyone knows what kind of clerks bumatay hires? Like top tier grades from top tier schools plus fed soc? Or

Supposedly he's trying to become a feeder (though I don't think he's fed any yet) so he's pretty aggressive about top grades/top school. I was reasonably competitive for COA clerkships at HYS and was specifically told Bumatay would be a pretty severe reach (same with Bress, fwiw).

I don't think this is true at all. I graduated fairly recently and his focus was very heavily on fed soc ties. He even hired a classmate after just his first semester grades.

I was FedSoc board and (roughly) top-third at HYS, and told that was insufficient (the specific words, from someone who would definitely know, was "probably disqualifying") for Bumatay earlier this year. Meanwhile other moderately-grade-sensitive COAs were more than willing to interview me.

Edit: also, I do think there's a distinction between 1L hires and later hires. Lots of FedSoc judges hire based on stellar 1L grades and then the future clerks slack off, while later hires are held to a consistently high standard.

Well whoever told you that lied, or things have changed in a year. One of my recent classmates clerked for him and he earned a grade at least once below a “pass,” which is an exceptionally hard thing to do at my hys. like it’s almost unfathomable how that happened. More likely to graduate w straight Hs—that’s how rare. So he was certainly not even top half, and obviously so. Butamaya likes fedsoc!

Agreed, Bumatay is not grade selective at all.

[Anonymous User]

Gelpi’s clerks seemed very mediocre last term. Their work product was very poor. Agreed with the poster above…he’s so chill, you can literally produce subpar work and he won’t even notice (he’s also an intellectual lightweight so not unsurprising).

He hires tons of students who don't get honors, so I'm not surprised.

[Anonymous User]

Gelpi’s clerks seemed very mediocre last term. Their work product was very poor. Agreed with the poster above…he’s so chill, you can literally produce subpar work and he won’t even notice (he’s also an intellectual lightweight so not unsurprising).

He hires tons of students who don't get honors, so I'm not surprised.

I’m gonna recommend the Puerto Rico circuit clerkship to under-performing law students! It was specially bad last year - agreed with the person above.

[Anonymous User]

Gelpi’s clerks seemed very mediocre last term. Their work product was very poor. Agreed with the poster above…he’s so chill, you can literally produce subpar work and he won’t even notice (he’s also an intellectual lightweight so not unsurprising).

He hires tons of students who don't get honors, so I'm not surprised.

I’m gonna recommend the Puerto Rico circuit clerkship to under-performing law students! It was specially bad last year - agreed with the person above.

This pile-on is kinda crazy and I don't even think its ideological because the 1st Circuit has no Fedsoc judges. What was the issue last year?

[Anonymous User]

Gelpi’s clerks seemed very mediocre last term. Their work product was very poor. Agreed with the poster above…he’s so chill, you can literally produce subpar work and he won’t even notice (he’s also an intellectual lightweight so not unsurprising).

He hires tons of students who don't get honors, so I'm not surprised.

I’m gonna recommend the Puerto Rico circuit clerkship to under-performing law students! It was specially bad last year - agreed with the person above.

This pile-on is kinda crazy and I don't even think its ideological because the 1st Circuit has no Fedsoc judges. What was the issue last year?

As much as I hate to say it, because he’s a very nice man, the work product was pretty bad. I’m not the other two posters, so I don’t know what their issue is specifically, but I suspect it’s the same.

[Anonymous User]

Gelpi’s clerks seemed very mediocre last term. Their work product was very poor. Agreed with the poster above…he’s so chill, you can literally produce subpar work and he won’t even notice (he’s also an intellectual lightweight so not unsurprising).

He hires tons of students who don't get honors, so I'm not surprised.

I’m gonna recommend the Puerto Rico circuit clerkship to under-performing law students! It was specially bad last year - agreed with the person above.

This pile-on is kinda crazy and I don't even think its ideological because the 1st Circuit has no Fedsoc judges. What was the issue last year?

Yeah if anything, isn’t Gelpi closer to the conservative end of CA1 (especially with Howard/Lynch now senior)? And do any of these posters have examples from his written opinions, or is this referring to bench memos/initial drafts that were fixed before filing?

[lavarman84]

Gelpi’s clerks seemed very mediocre last term. Their work product was very poor. Agreed with the poster above…he’s so chill, you can literally produce subpar work and he won’t even notice (he’s also an intellectual lightweight so not unsurprising).

He hires tons of students who don't get honors, so I'm not surprised.

I’m gonna recommend the Puerto Rico circuit clerkship to under-performing law students! It was specially bad last year - agreed with the person above.

This pile-on is kinda crazy and I don't even think its ideological because the 1st Circuit has no Fedsoc judges. What was the issue last year?

As much as I hate to say it, because he’s a very nice man, the work product was pretty bad. I’m not the other two posters, so I don’t know what their issue is specifically, but I suspect it’s the same.

I'll probably regret asking this because this all feels very unnecessary, but how bad could the work product really be? I don't recall ever seeing anything truly alarming when I clerked on a different COA.

[Anonymous User]

Gelpi’s clerks seemed very mediocre last term. Their work product was very poor. Agreed with the poster above…he’s so chill, you can literally produce subpar work and he won’t even notice (he’s also an intellectual lightweight so not unsurprising).

He hires tons of students who don't get honors, so I'm not surprised.

I’m gonna recommend the Puerto Rico circuit clerkship to under-performing law students! It was specially bad last year - agreed with the person above.

This pile-on is kinda crazy and I don't even think its ideological because the 1st Circuit has no Fedsoc judges. What was the issue last year?

As much as I hate to say it, because he’s a very nice man, the work product was pretty bad. I’m not the other two posters, so I don’t know what their issue is specifically, but I suspect it’s the same.

I'll probably regret asking this because this all feels very unnecessary, but how bad could the work product really be? I don't recall ever seeing anything truly alarming when I clerked on a different COA.

I can't speak about Gelpi, but during my time on the COA, I, and everyone else on the circuit that year, observed that the work product from an unnamed chamber was consistently subpar. Consistently received opinion drafts that had never been cite-checked, misstated the standard of review, got entire statutes incorrect, contained misspelled party names, and provided brief to the point of insulting analyses. It was bad.

[Anonymous User]

I’m the OP who first commented on Gelpi’s work product. I have no gripes with his ideological priors; I just noticed that his opinions were clearly worse than everyone else’s on CA1. I appreciate people sharing intel confirming that Gelpi is, frankly, not a judge to be taken seriously.

It’s a shame, too, given that his predecessor was so thorough (if very left leaning)