2021-2022 Clerkship Application Thread Forum

[yejeje]

For hiring-plan judges who want email submissions, should you schedule the email to be sent at 12:00 on Monday or send now and indicate it should only be considered at that time?

My impression was that we should send it in on Monday at noon.

[Anonymous User]

For hiring-plan judges who want email submissions, should you schedule the email to be sent at 12:00 on Monday or send now and indicate it should only be considered at that time?

FWIW, my school's CSO decided to email my letters of recommendation this past week (even though I asked them to wait until Monday ) so I ended up sending my apps early.

[floatie]

How do we find out if judges want calls to their chambers or not? Also how do we find out their email contact information?

On OSCAR, there will be a line that says "do not contact chambers" if they don't want anyone to contact chambers. If they don't have that, its safe to assume that calls are okay. It's not easy to get a judge's email address, and you should NEVER directly email a judge unless you are specifically asked to do so. Judges will usually list another email address (generic chambers address, or an assistant/clerk) on OSCAR if they want stuff emailed to them.

[Anonymous User]

How do we find out if judges want calls to their chambers or not? Also how do we find out their email contact information?

On OSCAR, there will be a line that says "do not contact chambers" if they don't want anyone to contact chambers. If they don't have that, its safe to assume that calls are okay. It's not easy to get a judge's email address, and you should NEVER directly email a judge unless you are specifically asked to do so. Judges will usually list another email address (generic chambers address, or an assistant/clerk) on OSCAR if they want stuff emailed to them.

On this note...is it OK for a recommender to email a judge directly? I know this is normally not a student's concern, but I have a well-meaning recommender who I'd like to ask to reach out to a judge. The recommender doesn't personally know the judge. I'm thinking it would be better to make direct contact with the judge rather than call the chambers phone number. But maybe that's intrusive...

[Anonymous User]

So what will tomorrow look like? Only the super competitive applicants get calls? Or does it seem like all judges will respect the 24 hour reading period?

[HenryHankPalmer]

Checking in to say solidarity with everyone stressing. I find this to be so much more nerve wracking than OCI. I am applying to District Court judges, all of whom are on On Plan, and I really don’t know what to expect from this week. But at this point the hay is in the barn.

[HenryHankPalmer]

So what will tomorrow look like? Only the super competitive applicants get calls? Or does it seem like all judges will respect the 24 hour reading period?

Our clerkship office seems to expect the 24 hour hold on interviews to fall by the wayside pretty quickly. But they’ve also said not to get discouraged if things move slowly because judges go at their own pace, and the transition to Teams/Skype interviews may slow things down.

[Anonymous User]

So what will tomorrow look like? Only the super competitive applicants get calls? Or does it seem like all judges will respect the 24 hour reading period?

Is the reading period new or did they have it last year? Because it seems like most judges were calling the day apps were released last year. I know 3L friends who got calls like two hours after the deadline.

[Anonymous User]

Is the reading period new or did they have it last year? Because it seems like most judges were calling the day apps were released last year. I know 3L friends who got calls like two hours after the deadline.

It's new for this year. One of my mentors (who's pretty keyed in) seemed to expect the reading period to hold, but for tomorrow to be a frantic day with judges trying to read all the apps in order to make the calls ASAP on Tuesday. TBD on if that franticness will include the more deliberately-paced judges, or just the feeders.

[desiperc]

I found the "Movement Today" thread on here pretty illuminating for how 2020-21 clerkship applications went. Frustratingly, the majority of OSCAR applicants (including most of mine) may well be filtered out based on school or GPA or what not.

But here for solidarity - We'll see each other through this.

[Anonymous User]

I find this to be so much more nerve wracking than OCI.

Agree 100%. At least with OCI I could look my school's GPA chart, see how many people from my school typically went to each firm, etc., and make vaguely educated guesses about what was gonna happen. But with this, I have no freaking idea. So that's... incredibly unpleasant.

[Anonymous User]

Not to hijack the thread, but what effect would only having two of three LoRs uploaded onto OSCAR by tomorrow be? I have a professor dragging his/her feet on the actual upload, even though they have already sent the LoR via email to a few judges accepting early applications. Is something like that expected, or will it reflect poorly on me? (i.e. that I didn't give the professor enough of a heads-up to write the LoR, even though that is far from reality).

[Anonymous User]

Not to hijack the thread, but what effect would only having two of three LoRs uploaded onto OSCAR by tomorrow be? I have a professor dragging his/her feet on the actual upload, even though they have already sent the LoR via email to a few judges accepting early applications. Is something like that expected, or will it reflect poorly on me? (i.e. that I didn't give the professor enough of a heads-up to write the LoR, even though that is far from reality).

My clerkship office told us that we should finalize the applications and not to worry about that.

[Anonymous User]

I find this to be so much more nerve wracking than OCI.

Agree 100%. At least with OCI I could look my school's GPA chart, see how many people from my school typically went to each firm, etc., and make vaguely educated guesses about what was gonna happen. But with this, I have no freaking idea. So that's... incredibly unpleasant.

I disagree. It’s more unknown but I feel ok if I strike out (which I did not feel at OCI). I guess though, it’s definitely a product of what your post-grad plans are if you don’t clerk. I could see not having a job lined up making it more stressful though. So if that is anyone — also here for solidarity and support.

[Anonymous User]

I find this to be so much more nerve wracking than OCI.

Agree 100%. At least with OCI I could look my school's GPA chart, see how many people from my school typically went to each firm, etc., and make vaguely educated guesses about what was gonna happen. But with this, I have no freaking idea. So that's... incredibly unpleasant.

+1 super nervous right now

[floatie]

I find this to be so much more nerve wracking than OCI.

Agree 100%. At least with OCI I could look my school's GPA chart, see how many people from my school typically went to each firm, etc., and make vaguely educated guesses about what was gonna happen. But with this, I have no freaking idea. So that's... incredibly unpleasant.

I disagree. It’s more unknown but I feel ok if I strike out (which I did not feel at OCI). I guess though, it’s definitely a product of what your post-grad plans are if you don’t clerk. I could see not having a job lined up making it more stressful though. So if that is anyone — also here for solidarity and support.

I've been an emotional rollercoaster about this. I have a great biglaw job lined up if I strike out, but I also reallyyyyyy want to clerk. I'm also a recent grad and not beholden to the plan, and it was super discouraging to strike out last year. I've had a few phone screeners already but most judges seem to want to wait until the rising 3L apps are out before making further decisions on interviews/offers.

[desiperc]

I've also been an emotional roller-coaster. I lucked out with an interview with an off-plan judge (who I had a couple of connections, call), but I did not get any offer - and frankly I can't escape the conclusion that I missed my shot.

[Anonymous User]

Curious for anyone who applied on the Plan last year: will very strong applicants applying broadly get a bunch of interview offers on Tuesday, or will it be spread out throughout the summer? Any general patterns to who goes early and who goes late?

[floatie]

Curious for anyone who applied on the Plan last year: will very strong applicants applying broadly get a bunch of interview offers on Tuesday, or will it be spread out throughout the summer? Any general patterns to who goes early and who goes late?

This is purely anecdotal, but my friends who were top of their class at T14 schools got calls/emails within the first day or two, and had locked up offers by the end of the week. And it seemed like most judges had wrapped up hiring for 2020-2021 within about two weeks of apps going out. Things might be a little slower this time around because of COVID and adjusting to video/Skype interviews, but not by much.

[desiperc]

Any anecdotal evidence for "near-top" students at T20s or T30s?

[Anonymous User]

I've also been an emotional roller-coaster. I lucked out with an interview with an off-plan judge (who I had a couple of connections, call), but I did not get any offer - and frankly I can't escape the conclusion that I missed my shot.

Same - my only hope is that they just want to get a sense of their OSCAR applicants before making decisions, but I doubt it.

[floatie]

Any anecdotal evidence for "near-top" students at T20s or T30s?

Again, just a limited sample size from my T25 school, but everyone who applied that was in the top 10% of the class got an interview within the first two weeks. But I also go to a school in a region with a lot of off-plan judges an a lot of judges who hire late, so plenty of people were still getting interview requests into July/August.

[Wild Card]

I found the "Movement Today" thread on here pretty illuminating for how 2020-21 clerkship applications went. Frustratingly, the majority of OSCAR applicants (including most of mine) may well be filtered out based on school or GPA or what not.

But here for solidarity - We'll see each other through this.

Thanks for reminding me of that thread. Amused by my old posts. At the same time, encouraged that judges will move quickly this week . . . but also the week of June 29 (?!). (lol @ EDNY judges all moving on July 3, 2019.)

[Anonymous User]

Is the reading period new or did they have it last year? Because it seems like most judges were calling the day apps were released last year. I know 3L friends who got calls like two hours after the deadline.

It's new for this year. One of my mentors (who's pretty keyed in) seemed to expect the reading period to hold, but for tomorrow to be a frantic day with judges trying to read all the apps in order to make the calls ASAP on Tuesday. TBD on if that franticness will include the more deliberately-paced judges, or just the feeders.

I didn't realize they didn't have the reading period last year. Guess that means we can put off the anxiety until Tuesday at 12

[desiperc]

So on OSCAR, our applications have a cover sheet with our school, rank, journal, moot court, work experience and stuff like that. Does anybody know if the content on the cover sheet is what chambers can use to filter out applications? I'm essentially asking for the mechanics of how applications are sorted on OSCAR (not really the individual filters per judge, because that's obviously idiosyncratic.)