Where am I competitive? Forum

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Where am I competitive?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Feb 01, 2013 1:53 pm

2L at MVP. Around 10% (with strong upward curve, i.e. from A's and B's to straight A's). On LR. No strong professor relations (yet--working on it); no publication (may have my note published in the LR).

Interested in Delaware Chancery (most of my classes are corporate, and those are the ones where I have the best grades). Would love to know if I'm competitive for any circuits or SDNY/EDNY too.

Professionally interested in corporate law, as a practice and if possible as a professor.

Also curious if the grade trend would work in my favor or not (if anyone has any idea).

theaccidentalclerk

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Re: Where am I competitive?

Post by theaccidentalclerk » Fri Feb 01, 2013 2:13 pm

1.) Delaware chancery: My understanding is that it's essentially as competitive as a non-2/9/DC COA clerkship. If that's the case, you probably have little chance as a student. You probably would have a chance applying as a COA clerk (more on that in a second).

2.) SDNY/EDNY: Depending on what "around 10%" means, you're competitive if you can get your resume in front of the judge. That's the good news. The bad news is that your materials probably aren't going to be so impressive that someone flipping through them on the first cut is immediately going to flag it. It will probably go in the stack of undifferentiated resumes for judge to look at. That's not the worst place to be -- but whether or not you get an interview is now at the mercy of whether there are enough flagged resumes and resumes in the stack ahead of yours to fill all of the spots. Especially with respect to SDNY, you're also going to run into the problem that so many of the judges are alum-only.

3.) COA: You're probably right at the margin of being competitive or not. Get your grades up into the top 10% and have a professor make calls, and I could see an interview or two. I could also see not. If you were really interested in this -- and you obviously should be if you're thinking about teaching -- then you could also apply broadly to the USDCs and then try to do a second clerkship. I think especially if you did a two year USDC clerkship and had your judge make calls you'd be successful.

4.) Academia: Five years ago, I'd say to go get a PhD after the law degree. Now, with the academic hiring market being what it is (essentially the Great Recession hit law schools in the last year or eighteen months, and NO ONE is hiring), it's too risky. If this is really a goal, do whatever you need to to get that COA clerkship, even if it means clerking for three years (and probably forfeiting one year of seniority at a firm and only getting the $70k bonus). Also plan on trying to write an article or two during your clerkship(s).

5.) Upward grade trend: Actually, this hurts you. I've heard of some judges that exclusively look at 1L grades. It's just too hard to normalize all of the easier/uncurved upper level classes. Though unless you had any affiirmatively bad grades, it's not something to worry about that much.

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