Judges who are hiring RIGHT NOW for 2013-14 term: question Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hello, I have a question about judges who are hiring right now, so late, for the 2013-14 term. I'm glad because I am desperately trying to apply for those positions (long story), but I was wondering why that is, and if there is anything I should be aware of about these judges?

[A. Nony Mouse]

I don't think there are any generalizations that can be made. Sometimes it's judges who have been newly appointed. Sometimes a clerk bails when they get something else. Some judges might just hire on a different schedule. Very occasionally I suppose a clerk could have been fired (to be clear, the only instances I know of a clerk getting fired involved pretty egregious incompetence - it's way more trouble to fire someone than to just wait out a year). So I don't think you can assume that there's something bad about the situation just because the position's being advertised now.

[Detrox]

I don't think there are any generalizations that can be made. Sometimes it's judges who have been newly appointed. Sometimes a clerk bails when they get something else. Some judges might just hire on a different schedule. Very occasionally I suppose a clerk could have been fired (to be clear, the only instances I know of a clerk getting fired involved pretty egregious incompetence - it's way more trouble to fire someone than to just wait out a year). So I don't think you can assume that there's something bad about the situation just because the position's being advertised now.

In addition to these reasons, a lot of older judges sometimes decide to defer hiring until later if they are considering retiring or taking on reduced workloads.

[Anonymous User]

The answer is no. There are judges (I can think of one very highly regarded one) who prefer to hire this late in the cycle. Often positions open up when a prospective clerk has to withdraw for whatever reason. The idea that the judge could have fired a clerk before the clerk started work seems highly unrealistic and I could only imagine it ever occurring in the most extreme cases (e.g., criminal conduct; material misrepresentations in application).