Clerkships for Transfers Forum

[Anonymous User]

First thing to focus on is to secure 3 rec letters, either from old school's profs, 1L summer employer or new school's profs ASAP.
Second, most likely immediately-post-grad CoA gigs are not an option because they want apps/make decisions in December of your 2L. You may want to look at least 1 year out of school for CoA gig.
Third, immediately-post-grad district court gigs are available. Whoever tells you otherwise is flat out lying to you.

P.S. The class rank question is pretty tricky, because (most?) new school won't rank you until the end of your 2L year.

December is still very early even considering the nonexistence of the plan. I didn't apply until early February and ended up with 6 COA interviews from February through May.

[toothbrush]

Can someone explain the whole "the plan has been ruined" thing? I know *generally* that OSCAR is no longer going to be used? Oscar, before, served the purpose of LSAC? What is being replaced?

[A. Nony Mouse]

Can someone explain the whole "the plan has been ruined" thing? I know *generally* that OSCAR is no longer going to be used? Oscar, before, served the purpose of LSAC? What is being replaced?

It used to be that if you wanted to apply online using OSCAR (which I think was sort of the expected method), the system would not release rising 3Ls' applications until around Labor Day, and then judges could not contact you for an interview until a week later (the dates got moved to June last year). Judges could (and did) take paper apps sent directly to them at any time, but some number of judges agreed to abide by the plan schedule and wouldn't look at rising 3L apps till that date even if not submitted via OSCAR.

It was never a 100% thing - the entire 10th Circuit basically ignored it - but especially when it was first instituted, a lot of judges abided by this. It was instituted because things had reached a point where feeders were hiring people with one semester of 1L grades, and there were concerns about all the good candidates getting poached early, was hiring based on 1 semester effective, how would students know when to apply, etc. The problem was that once enough judges were ignoring the plan, applying became really confusing - who was and wasn't on the plan? When should you apply? I think, too, people were just moving to getting around the deadline by sending paper apps, which is frustrating to judges who find OSCAR easier (you don't have a huge stack of applications to deal with, you choose what to download and look at). And some law schools would enforce the plan and some wouldn't, which didn't help.

Now, the plan is officially dead, so 2Ls/rising 3Ls can apply when they like, through OSCAR, and judges will get that application as soon as you submit it. (It looks like there's a soft barrier for 1Ls, in that OSCAR won't open for you until August leading into your 2L year? But it's not the same as the plan because it doesn't purport to bind judges to a particular schedule.) It's still hard to know when to apply, but at least it's obvious that it's hard to know, rather than people thinking judges were following the plan when they weren't.

So it's actually easier to apply via OSCAR now than it was before.