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I am having some trouble picking a second writing sample. My first writing sample is a brief I wrote for a moot court competition that won an award. The only legal work product I have right now are draft opinions from judicial internships, which are, as I understand it, somewhat frowned upon by some judges and their clerks (although I have permission to use them and used them for OCI). My other option is to use an excerpt of my note, but it is not yet complete and covers a dense and complicated topic (it may not be readily understandable).

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

How frequently are you encountering judges that require 2 writing samples?

A. Nony Mouse wrote:How frequently are you encountering judges that require 2 writing samples?

There are a handful so far.

I guess I think I'd go with an excerpt of your note, so the judges get both the practical and the academic sides of your writing, and you avoid any of the potential concerns with the internship work. (I know I have used judicial internship work product to apply for clerkships, but I honestly can't remember what sample I sent to the judge that ultimately hired me, so I don't know if ever raised any eyebrows or not.)

I have used a draft opinion I wrote in a judicial internship as my primary writing sample. Have not sensed it raised any eyebrows and have had good success (several interview offers and just accepted a clerkship). As long as you explicitly clear the version you are using and make it perfectly clear in your application materials that the sample is used with the judge's blessing, I don't see what the issue with it would be.

D. ct. clerk here. Every chambers varies tremendously, so take this with a grain of salt, but I would strongly avoid using a sample from your Note. Academic work is simply not reflective of the kind of work you'll be doing as a clerk. I would use the moot court sample because it is likely to be much more representative, despite the voice/clear bias.

(I know some COA judges and clerks on TLS have suggested otherwise, but this is my strong opinion based on my judge's opinion and my reviewing 200+ apps a few months back.)

Anonymous User wrote:I have used a draft opinion I wrote in a judicial internship as my primary writing sample. Have not sensed it raised any eyebrows and have had good success (several interview offers and just accepted a clerkship). As long as you explicitly clear the version you are using and make it perfectly clear in your application materials that the sample is used with the judge's blessing, I don't see what the issue with it would be.

The issue would be that it is very unlikely to be 100% your own work. If it's almost all your work, you need to make that explicit, or else it's assumed someone else helped edit it (and, thus, it's not representative of your writing ability).

I completely agree the moot court sample should be the first sample; the issue is what to use as a second sample.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I have used a draft opinion I wrote in a judicial internship as my primary writing sample. Have not sensed it raised any eyebrows and have had good success (several interview offers and just accepted a clerkship). As long as you explicitly clear the version you are using and make it perfectly clear in your application materials that the sample is used with the judge's blessing, I don't see what the issue with it would be.

The issue would be that it is very unlikely to be 100% your own work. If it's almost all your work, you need to make that explicit, or else it's assumed someone else helped edit it (and, thus, it's not representative of your writing ability).

Sorry, I should have made clear - the draft opinion was 100% my own work and I also stated that it was entirely my work and self-edited. My judge gave me permission to use what I originally turned into him as my sample so that I could submit it and honestly say it was entirely mine.

OP here.

Okay thanks for your input. I also asked another judge I interned for and the judge's career clerk, plus the clerkship office. They actually said not to use the note and to use an excerpt of the opinion with the information redacted. I think that because my note is really difficult to understand (it's a very complex procedural and judicial doctrine piece), I'm just going to go with an excerpt. Hopefully it works out as it did for the other anon.