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So lets say I lived my whole live in CA and I start applying to jobs in Arizona, Maine, Wisconsin, etc.
Do Judges prefer you to have ties? Also, if you are selected for an interview, will you be expected to fly for an in person interview?

Some judges care very much about ties and prefer people from/planning to practice in their jurisdiction; others don't care at all. And yes, you are generally expected to fly in for an in-person interview, though I have heard of occasional skype interviews.

1. Some judges almost exclusively accept people with ties or who plan to stay in a given market. Other judges do not care about it all. And every judge falls somewhere in between those two extremes. I don't know that there's any real prevailing wisdom other than that big name feeders don't really care at all because they just want the shiniest clerk possible.

2. If it's for a clerkship, the vast majority of judges will have you fly in at some point. Some do a phone or video conference screening interview with an in-person one to follow. Very, very few do just phone or video conferencing.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:Some judges care very much about ties and prefer people from/planning to practice in their jurisdiction; others don't care at all. And yes, you are generally expected to fly in for an in-person interview, though I have heard of occasional skype interviews.

This on both accounts.

I have 2 interviews in the next few weeks that are on the opposite coast (I have strong ties to one, almost none to the other). One of them is going to be a Skype interview, but the other is asking me to fly in.

From my own experience, I've found that judges from bigger, more prestigious districts (SDNY, CDCA, etc.) don't really care as much about ties. Just stellar credentials and great grades. But in more "flyover" areas, the judges give a lot more weight to the people with ties. That's what I've seen.