Post-Clerkship Job hunt (Fall 2014 cycle) Forum

[Anonymous User]

COA clerk here. Starting to get worried as well. Applied to about 20 DC firms back in Jan. Heard back from about half so far--all rejections.

About 20 DC firms in January and February, and 4-5 rejections and 2 CB's. One CB came quickly, the other after about two months. Happy to have the CB's, obviously, but 2 isn't exactly a guarantee of anything. My impression from digging around a bit is that firms are waiting to see what their clerks do. As the process plays out and clerks accept new offers and release old ones, I think we'll see slow movement for the next several months.

[bradley]

COA clerk here. Starting to get worried as well. Applied to about 20 DC firms back in Jan. Heard back from about half so far--all rejections.

About 20 DC firms in January and February, and 4-5 rejections and 2 CB's. One CB came quickly, the other after about two months. Happy to have the CB's, obviously, but 2 isn't exactly a guarantee of anything. My impression from digging around a bit is that firms are waiting to see what their clerks do. As the process plays out and clerks accept new offers and release old ones, I think we'll see slow movement for the next several months.

Stats? 2 callbacks out of 20 sounds pretty good to me.

[Anonymous User]

COA clerk here. Starting to get worried as well. Applied to about 20 DC firms back in Jan. Heard back from about half so far--all rejections.

About 20 DC firms in January and February, and 4-5 rejections and 2 CB's. One CB came quickly, the other after about two months. Happy to have the CB's, obviously, but 2 isn't exactly a guarantee of anything. My impression from digging around a bit is that firms are waiting to see what their clerks do. As the process plays out and clerks accept new offers and release old ones, I think we'll see slow movement for the next several months.

Stats? 2 callbacks out of 20 sounds pretty good to me.

Top 5% lower T14, COA. Obviously happy to have the CB's, but they're at reaches which makes me nervous given the kind of candidates that make up the competition.

[Anonymous User]

Any word on how fast firms are getting back with offers? The rejections seem to come pretty promptly.

[legalese_retard]

Not sure if knowing that other judicial law clerks are also struggling to find jobs should make me feel better or worse. Schadenfreude's a bitch.

[Anonymous User]

Update --

T14, top 10%, LR. Looking at the DC market.

so far I've gotten one CB (pending), one CB leading to an offer, and 1 screener (pending), all V20 firms. I've gotten rejections from ~7 other firms; six of those apologized and said they're full up from their summer classes, and one was just a flat no. Radio silence from around 10 other firms. One other firm said they're placing my app on the backburner while they figure out hiring needs.

[legalese_retard]

Update --

T14, top 10%, LR. Looking at the DC market.

so far I've gotten one CB (pending), one CB leading to an offer, and 1 screener (pending), all V20 firms. I've gotten rejections from ~7 other firms; six of those apologized and said they're full up from their summer classes, and one was just a flat no. Radio silence from around 10 other firms. One other firm said they're placing my app on the backburner while they figure out hiring needs.

Congrats, and thanks for the update. Are you District or COA?

[Anonymous User]

Update --

T14, top 10%, LR. Looking at the DC market.

so far I've gotten one CB (pending), one CB leading to an offer, and 1 screener (pending), all V20 firms. I've gotten rejections from ~7 other firms; six of those apologized and said they're full up from their summer classes, and one was just a flat no. Radio silence from around 10 other firms. One other firm said they're placing my app on the backburner while they figure out hiring needs.

Congrats, and thanks for the update. Are you District or COA?

Thanks! I'm district.

[Anonymous User]

Care to list which firms dinged you?

[Citizen Genet]

If you'd be willing to PM me which ones DINGed you, I'd take that as well.

Edit: Why in the world did I caps DING? Really, no offense intended with that. I just noticed it when I came back in this thread.

[Anonymous User]

This is really stressful. Just blew my second and last callback. I think I forgot how to interview or I never could interview in the first place (my judge is eccentric and I could see him hiring me even if I seemed kind of odd). That and apparently firms still care about 1L grades. Have a ton of work to do and just can't get over missing out on these opportunities, especially since most of my applications got a quick reject.

At least the rejection letters seem a lot nicer this time around than as a 2L.

[Anonymous User]

This is really stressful. Just blew my second and last callback. I think I forgot how to interview or I never could interview in the first place (my judge is eccentric and I could see him hiring me even if I seemed kind of odd). That and apparently firms still care about 1L grades. Have a ton of work to do and just can't get over missing out on these opportunities, especially since most of my applications got a quick reject.

At least the rejection letters seem a lot nicer this time around than as a 2L.

I know this is not too much of a comfort for you but atleast you are one of the few getting callbacks. I had very good grades from 1L year to 3L year and LR. Compared to my classmates' status and their big law offers, my stats wouldve landed me big law after graduation. But because I bought into the hype that you can't go wrong with clerkship, I chose to clerk instead; now I cannot even get an interview. Few dings but mostly radio silence. So atleast you are doing something right if you got two callbacks already and, thus, appear to be ahead of the other applicants. Hope it turns out well, I am hoping I will eventually land something too!!

[Anonymous User]

This is really stressful. Just blew my second and last callback. I think I forgot how to interview or I never could interview in the first place (my judge is eccentric and I could see him hiring me even if I seemed kind of odd). That and apparently firms still care about 1L grades. Have a ton of work to do and just can't get over missing out on these opportunities, especially since most of my applications got a quick reject.

At least the rejection letters seem a lot nicer this time around than as a 2L.

I know this is not too much of a comfort for you but atleast you are one of the few getting callbacks. I had very good grades from 1L year to 3L year and LR. Compared to my classmates' status and their big law offers, my stats wouldve landed me big law after graduation. But because I bought into the hype that you can't go wrong with clerkship, I chose to clerk instead; now I cannot even get an interview. Few dings but mostly radio silence. So atleast you are doing something right if you got two callbacks already and, thus, appear to be ahead of the other applicants. Hope it turns out well, I am hoping I will eventually land something too!!

One of those CBs was a fairly strong judge connection, which I blew (apparently 1/4 people didn't like me).

Yes I suppose I'm just venting at how stressful and arbitrary this process is. At least in law school a lot of the interviews happened at the same time so you could shake off a bad one. Trying to fit this around work (my court is very busy this time of year) is also hard.

How many applications did you send out? What markets?

[Tangerine Gleam]

This is really stressful. Just blew my second and last callback. I think I forgot how to interview or I never could interview in the first place (my judge is eccentric and I could see him hiring me even if I seemed kind of odd). That and apparently firms still care about 1L grades. Have a ton of work to do and just can't get over missing out on these opportunities, especially since most of my applications got a quick reject.

At least the rejection letters seem a lot nicer this time around than as a 2L.

I know this is not too much of a comfort for you but atleast you are one of the few getting callbacks. I had very good grades from 1L year to 3L year and LR. Compared to my classmates' status and their big law offers, my stats wouldve landed me big law after graduation. But because I bought into the hype that you can't go wrong with clerkship, I chose to clerk instead; now I cannot even get an interview. Few dings but mostly radio silence. So atleast you are doing something right if you got two callbacks already and, thus, appear to be ahead of the other applicants. Hope it turns out well, I am hoping I will eventually land something too!!

Did you summer at a firm?

[84651846190]

I don't understand why so many of you couldn't or didn't get firm jobs as summer associates with a promise of returning to the firm later. I mean, it seems like most of you had the grades to do it. What were you thinking at the time? Did you all just strike out randomly? Are you all terrible interviewers?

[A. Nony Mouse]

I don't understand why so many of you couldn't or didn't get firm jobs as summer associates with a promise of returning to the firm later. I mean, it seems like most of you had the grades to do it. What were you thinking at the time? Did you all just strike out randomly? Are you all terrible interviewers?

That's not the most helpful comment to offer people looking for jobs. FWIW, though, I think clerkship hiring is idiosyncratic enough, and dependent enough on things like personal recs and connections, that it is possible to get a clerkship coming out of a school that doesn't offer great biglaw opportunities and without having done a SA/got a permanent offer. The firm job I got my 2L summer was with a local firm (in a city with vey little biglaw) that doesn't hire out of its summer program. (They want you to clerk and then get back to them, and they can then see if they need anyone.) That was fine for me because I didn't want to be locked in to a firm, but it was also the only offer I got (class of 2011 OCI wasn't pretty, especially at my lower T1 in a small market.) I then went on to get a clerkship. I wasn't interested in firm jobs so I didn't apply for any out of the clerkship, and so I can't say what my track record would have been, but I certainly didn't have one waiting for me. And if you're not coming out of an elite school in a major market, it may not be that simple to find something. (It's always easier to get a new job when you actually have one.)

Also, the later clerkship hiring takes place, the more time you have to improve your grades from where they were at OCI. I went up about 8% from OCI to clerkship hiring time, and it was probably a fairly key 8%. This will probably be less of a thing now that the plan has dissolved.

[Anonymous User]

I don't understand why so many of you couldn't or didn't get firm jobs as summer associates with a promise of returning to the firm later. I mean, it seems like most of you had the grades to do it. What were you thinking at the time? Did you all just strike out randomly? Are you all terrible interviewers?

For me it was a combination of factors. The market sucked. I am also not a great interviewer- undoubtedly there was a grade level where you went auto-callback-offer but I was well below it (median, T6). During the two years in between I boosted my grades somewhat, and added literally a ton of interesting stuff to my resume. That got me an excellent clerkship (one where people simply assume that I'll get a job no problem)- but firms do not hire off idiosyncrasies as the above poster notes. The lack of a SA position and the mediocre first year grades are still a negative factor in my application.

I'm out of interviewing practice too, I think, and am definitely anxious about disclosing too much about what I do to people who might have worked/be soon working on cases before the court.

[Anonymous User]

I had an offer from my SA firm, so I only applied to about 5 places (boutiques and such) and wasn't too aggressive. One CB (which I blew), one screener (via telephone). Both rejections, but I wasn't really expecting much. Friends are definitely getting calls from other boutiques, but those are people with Top 5%+ in the class at my T14.

[Citizen Genet]

I had an offer from my SA firm, so I only applied to about 5 places (boutiques and such) and wasn't too aggressive. One CB (which I blew), one screener (via telephone). Both rejections, but I wasn't really expecting much. Friends are definitely getting calls from other boutiques, but those are people with Top 5%+ in the class at my T14.

Mind if I ask which market the boutique call backs are coming from?

[Anonymous User]

I don't understand why so many of you couldn't or didn't get firm jobs as summer associates with a promise of returning to the firm later. I mean, it seems like most of you had the grades to do it. What were you thinking at the time? Did you all just strike out randomly? Are you all terrible interviewers?

As a preliminary matter, folks interested in going back to their 2L SA firm aren't going to be in this thread. Second, lots of people use clerkships to either change markets or upgrade firms.

[Anonymous User]

I don't understand why so many of you couldn't or didn't get firm jobs as summer associates with a promise of returning to the firm later. I mean, it seems like most of you had the grades to do it. What were you thinking at the time? Did you all just strike out randomly? Are you all terrible interviewers?

Many people (including me) probably did their 2L year with the government and now can't manage to snag a government job. That's the fix that I'm in. I don't particularly want to be at a firm and I'd rather be working for the government, but that's the boat I'm in right now, as are many people.

[Anonymous User]

I am confused, is it not customery for firm's to respond to judicial law clerks apps ( i.e when it comes to judicial clerks do they only contact you if they plan on interviewing you?) When applying before clerkship, I know that most firms (although not all) always responded atleast with a rejection email/letter, but this time, I have not heard from almost all of the firms I have applied to. Am I to assume I will get some sort of response at some point, that if they haven’t contacted me by now (month plus) that it’s a ding and shouldn’t expect a response, or am I still in the run? I know not all firms treat this the same, but I am confused on what to make of all this. The wait/uncertainty is worse than the ding in itself.

[legalese_retard]

I am confused, is it not customery for firm's to respond to judicial law clerks apps ( i.e when it comes to judicial clerks do they only contact you if they plan on interviewing you?) When applying before clerkship, I know that most firms (although not all) always responded atleast with a rejection email/letter, but this time, I have not heard from almost all of the firms I have applied to. Am I to assume I will get some sort of response at some point, that if they haven’t contacted me by now (month plus) that it’s a ding and shouldn’t expect a response, or am I still in the run? I know not all firms treat this the same, but I am confused on what to make of all this. The wait/uncertainty is worse than the ding in itself.

It depends on the firm. I've only heard back from half the firms I applied to back in January. Most were rejections, but at least two told me that they are considering law clerks in the summer after they know their hiring needs.

[Citizen Genet]

So talking with a former clerk who applied about three years back, he said he sent out 25 applications, received callbacks at 5 firms (would that I had that many!), heard no from about 10 more and then never heard from 10.

[Anonymous User]

few dings from few firms (1/3) in the east coast. Have not heard back from 2/3 of firms I applied to. I am guessing its either they won't start moving on apps until April/may or they already interviewed some clerks and waiting to see if the offers they sent out will be accepted --in other words, I might be a back up plan. No matter how you slice it, not looking too good but what can you do. You just keep on until you get that magical call one day lol