Judges who female or LGBT law clerks should avoid Forum

[rpupkin]

lmao pupkin you nebbish dork

[rpupkin]

I guess I'm just confused where applicants are going to find this untapped pool of ex-clerks outside of for a subset of judges and a subset of schools.

You can often find someone you know—like a lawyer at your summer firm or a professor—who has a connection to an ex-clerk of the judge. And once you're at the interview stage, cold contacting a former clerk is fine, I think. The last two interviewees to contact me about my judge didn't go to my law school.

[lolwat]

I guess I'm just confused where applicants are going to find this untapped pool of ex-clerks outside of for a subset of judges and a subset of schools.

You can often find someone you know—like a lawyer at your summer firm or a professor—who has a connection to an ex-clerk of the judge. And once you're at the interview stage, cold contacting a former clerk is fine, I think. The last two interviewees to contact me about my judge didn't go to my law school.

I was involved in something recently where we had to find a bunch of ex-clerks and ex-interns of judges for reasons.
It was sort of a pain, but didn't take THAT long to amass a list of like 20 for each.

[BlackAndOrange84]

I guess I'm just confused where applicants are going to find this untapped pool of ex-clerks outside of for a subset of judges and a subset of schools.

You can often find someone you know—like a lawyer at your summer firm or a professor—who has a connection to an ex-clerk of the judge. And once you're at the interview stage, cold contacting a former clerk is fine, I think. The last two interviewees to contact me about my judge didn't go to my law school.

I just want to second that it's fine to cold contact a former clerk without a connection of any sort. Is it better to have some connection (school or summer firm)? Yes. But it isn't necessary. I did this pretty extensively with one judge I interviewed with who hadn't hired from my school before.

Another potential avenue for leads: even if you don't have any alum who clerked for a particular judge, an alum who clerked on that circuit or in that district may be able to put you in touch with a former clerk of that judge from that year. They may also be able to provide some insight into how that judge and his chambers is perceived by others. I had a couple of alums do this for me.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Eh, you can do this (I have done this), but I don’t think it’s a magic bullet.

[wwwcol]

I recognize that my approach differed from most, but I reached out to at least one former clerk for every judge that I considered applying to. About half the time the clerk graduated from ether the same undergrad or law school so that provided an easy connection, but the rest of the time I cold emailed anyways and just said I was trying to find out more about the clerkship and asked if they had 15 mins to chat. I think I ended up talking to about 20 or 30 people; only two or three either didn’t respond to the cold email or declined to chat (maybe on account of my personality, as Nebby observes )

The calls ended up being very helpful (which is the point I’m trying to emphasize to y’all-this info is sometimes out there if you put in the work to find it). A few clerks raised red flags that deterred me from applying. For example, one clerk basically said in an usually candid call that the judge worked the hell out of his clerks but never provided feedback other than “this is shitty.” Another alluded to the judge’s (exceedingly) high reversal rate.

[Anonymous User]

About half the time the clerk graduated from ether the same undergrad or law school so that provided an easy connection

Yea, I think people are really overlooking things like this. If you go to a school thats sends a lot of students into clerkships, this might be feasible.

If, like another poster mentioned, you go to a not top school and you're sending out 100 apps and getting 3 interviews and have no clue who ex-clerks are and neither does your CSO...this is not possible. Some schools barely have support for clerkship apps.

[GoneSouth]

I recognize that my approach differed from most, but I reached out to at least one former clerk for every judge that I considered applying to. About half the time the clerk graduated from ether the same undergrad or law school so that provided an easy connection, but the rest of the time I cold emailed anyways and just said I was trying to find out more about the clerkship and asked if they had 15 mins to chat. I think I ended up talking to about 20 or 30 people; only two or three either didn’t respond to the cold email or declined to chat (maybe on account of my personality, as Nebby observes )

The calls ended up being very helpful (which is the point I’m trying to emphasize to y’all-this info is sometimes out there if you put in the work to find it). A few clerks raised red flags that deterred me from applying. For example, one clerk basically said in an usually candid call that the judge worked the hell out of his clerks but never provided feedback other than “this is shitty.” Another alluded to the judge’s (exceedingly) high reversal rate.

It's great if you were able to get the clerkship(s) you wanted by only applying to 20-30 judges. But many people, even at good schools, are going to have to apply a lot more broadly than that.

[LawLan]

Fun time to revisit this thread!

[Anonymous User]

Ladies of, or considering attending, YLS: Unless you enjoy being hit on by a middle-aged, married man who wields power over your career, seriously stay away from Tiger Dad when he is drunk (which is surprisingly often). At least two of my friends were subject to his machinations. I'm told that each "generation" of YLS women has had to learn this the hard way.

I've heard similar from a friend who attended YLS some years ago. Apparently "Tiger Dad" made both him and his girlfriend uncomfortable.

Lots of stuff in this thread is kind of sickening to revisit but this especially stands out in light of recent developments. How could YLS let this stuff go on for so long, and out in the open, without coming down harder on Chua/Rubenfeld?

[Anonymous User]

Ladies of, or considering attending, YLS: Unless you enjoy being hit on by a middle-aged, married man who wields power over your career, seriously stay away from Tiger Dad when he is drunk (which is surprisingly often). At least two of my friends were subject to his machinations. I'm told that each "generation" of YLS women has had to learn this the hard way.

I've heard similar from a friend who attended YLS some years ago. Apparently "Tiger Dad" made both him and his girlfriend uncomfortable.

Lots of stuff in this thread is kind of sickening to revisit but this especially stands out in light of recent developments. How could YLS let this stuff go on for so long, and out in the open, without coming down harder on Chua/Rubenfeld?

Why did everyone let Kozinski and Reinhardt harass all of the female clerks on the 9th? People don't want to believe their friends are capable of these types of things and are too scared to cross them.

[Anonymous User]

Ladies of, or considering attending, YLS: Unless you enjoy being hit on by a middle-aged, married man who wields power over your career, seriously stay away from Tiger Dad when he is drunk (which is surprisingly often). At least two of my friends were subject to his machinations. I'm told that each "generation" of YLS women has had to learn this the hard way.

I've heard similar from a friend who attended YLS some years ago. Apparently "Tiger Dad" made both him and his girlfriend uncomfortable.

Lots of stuff in this thread is kind of sickening to revisit but this especially stands out in light of recent developments. How could YLS let this stuff go on for so long, and out in the open, without coming down harder on Chua/Rubenfeld?

Why did everyone let Kozinski and Reinhardt harass all of the female clerks on the 9th? People don't want to believe their friends are capable of these types of things and are too scared to cross them.

Agree but part of the problem there is the unique position of power of a federal judge with life tenure. They can't be fired and must be shamed into resigning or be impeached. You'd think Chubenfeld would at least be accountable to the YLS administration.

[Anonymous User]

Ladies of, or considering attending, YLS: Unless you enjoy being hit on by a middle-aged, married man who wields power over your career, seriously stay away from Tiger Dad when he is drunk (which is surprisingly often). At least two of my friends were subject to his machinations. I'm told that each "generation" of YLS women has had to learn this the hard way.

I've heard similar from a friend who attended YLS some years ago. Apparently "Tiger Dad" made both him and his girlfriend uncomfortable.

Lots of stuff in this thread is kind of sickening to revisit but this especially stands out in light of recent developments. How could YLS let this stuff go on for so long, and out in the open, without coming down harder on Chua/Rubenfeld?

Why did everyone let Kozinski and Reinhardt harass all of the female clerks on the 9th? People don't want to believe their friends are capable of these types of things and are too scared to cross them.

Agree but part of the problem there is the unique position of power of a federal judge with life tenure. They can't be fired and must be shamed into resigning or be impeached. You'd think Chubenfeld would at least be accountable to the YLS administration.

Tenured professors are only slightly easier to dislodge than judges. Seems unlikely that Tiger Dad would have kept his job as a partner at, say, Skadden, but it's a lot more complicated to fire an endowed chair.

The situations are actually pretty similar. Chubenfeld and Kozinski/Reinhardt are all uber-charismatic Type A's at the absolute top of their field, capable of charming their peers and intimidating the daylights out of subordinates. My judge, hardly an apologist for the old boys' club, expressed amazement the year after Koz's scandal blew up that "my friend Alex" could be capable of the things reported. I'm not even sure my judge was/is aware of Reinhardt's reputation as a boss. Law professors aren't quite as siloed as appellate judges, but if your primary interaction with Chubenfeld is at faculty receptions, panels, etc. where they put on their best act for the wine and cheese crowd, you're not seeing the side of them that students see.

[Anonymous User]

Ladies of, or considering attending, YLS: Unless you enjoy being hit on by a middle-aged, married man who wields power over your career, seriously stay away from Tiger Dad when he is drunk (which is surprisingly often). At least two of my friends were subject to his machinations. I'm told that each "generation" of YLS women has had to learn this the hard way.

I've heard similar from a friend who attended YLS some years ago. Apparently "Tiger Dad" made both him and his girlfriend uncomfortable.

Lots of stuff in this thread is kind of sickening to revisit but this especially stands out in light of recent developments. How could YLS let this stuff go on for so long, and out in the open, without coming down harder on Chua/Rubenfeld?

Why did everyone let Kozinski and Reinhardt harass all of the female clerks on the 9th? People don't want to believe their friends are capable of these types of things and are too scared to cross them.

Agree but part of the problem there is the unique position of power of a federal judge with life tenure. They can't be fired and must be shamed into resigning or be impeached. You'd think Chubenfeld would at least be accountable to the YLS administration.

Tenured professors are only slightly easier to dislodge than judges. Seems unlikely that Tiger Dad would have kept his job as a partner at, say, Skadden, but it's a lot more complicated to fire an endowed chair.

The situations are actually pretty similar. Chubenfeld and Kozinski/Reinhardt are all uber-charismatic Type A's at the absolute top of their field, capable of charming their peers and intimidating the daylights out of subordinates. My judge, hardly an apologist for the old boys' club, expressed amazement the year after Koz's scandal blew up that "my friend Alex" could be capable of the things reported. I'm not even sure my judge was/is aware of Reinhardt's reputation as a boss. Law professors aren't quite as siloed as appellate judges, but if your primary interaction with Chubenfeld is at faculty receptions, panels, etc. where they put on their best act for the wine and cheese crowd, you're not seeing the side of them that students see.

One of the weird things about Chua to me is that she's not actually a leading scholar and would never be on the YLS faculty if she wasn't a spousal hire, but she somehow ended up with tremendous influence over the YLS clerk pipeline. She must be great at cocktail parties