Is transferring beneficial to clerking? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Specifically, I'm considering transferring out of my t20 school to go to CCN or HLS, mainly because of the clerkship stats. I'm in the top 3% of my class, had several profs at my school say they'll make calls and recommend me when the time comes (all are former clerks), law review, summer associate at top firm as a 1L, and externing with a District Court judge in this fall semester. Is it worth transferring out of my school to increase my odds of clerking despite all of this? I've heard viewpoints go both ways, just looking for a little extra knowledge. Clerking is very important to me, it's one of my primary goals, and I want to work as a litigator in the long term.

Thank you so much for any advice!!

EDIT: forgot to add that I have already worked as a research assistant this year.

[2012LawGrad]

I would think top 3% at a T20 would put you in the running for a COA clerkship already. Certainly a Dist. Ct. How many clerks does your current school usually send per class? And are you on scholarship at your current school? Do you think you'd be eligible for any scholarships at a transfer school?

[Citizen Genet]

Specifically, I'm considering transferring out of my t20 school to go to CCN or HLS, mainly because of the clerkship stats. I'm in the top 3% of my class, had several profs at my school say they'll make calls and recommend me when the time comes (all are former clerks), law review, summer associate at top firm as a 1L, and externing with a District Court judge in this fall semester. Is it worth transferring out of my school to increase my odds of clerking despite all of this? I've heard viewpoints go both ways, just looking for a little extra knowledge. Clerking is very important to me, it's one of my primary goals, and I want to work as a litigator in the long term.

Thank you so much for any advice!!

I'm assuming your somewhere between WUSTL and Minnesota. Any of those schools will give you competitive stats to go to a COA spot, but, as usual, hiring can be dicey so there's no guarantee. Assuming you stay Top 5%, even Top 10%, at any of those schools, then you should be able to move into COA spot in the local region (i.e. WUSTL to the 8th, Emory to the 11th).

The hard part is saying what's the benefit of going to CCN or HLS. Well, if you go to HLS, kill it in terms of grades, and John Manning thinks you're the most brilliant student in the past decade, you'll land a feeder and have a great shot at SCOTUS. On the other hand, if you go to Columbia, get average grades, and have to rest on what you did 1L, then you've undercut a lot of your potential as a clerkship candidate. So it's impossible to know what the added benefit of going is.

I love clerking and I'd die for a SCOTUS clerkship. But there's no way I'd stake a huge decision based on that. If you're just looking for any old clerkship, you're in a great spot right now; if I were you, I'd stay put. But there's a bunch of other factors that go into a decision to transfer -- I'd focus on those more.

[Anonymous User]

I would think top 3% at a T20 would put you in the running for a COA clerkship already. Certainly a Dist. Ct. How many clerks does your current school usually send per class? And are you on scholarship at your current school? Do you think you'd be eligible for any scholarships at a transfer school?

My school has like a 7% rate or so straight out law school but I know a lot of alumni who are going to clerk after a year or two in big law. I would be better off financially staying at my school. Number of SCOTUS clerks also increasing (but I'm not thinking about that yet, just looking at COA in general right now).

[Anonymous User]

Specifically, I'm considering transferring out of my t20 school to go to CCN or HLS, mainly because of the clerkship stats. I'm in the top 3% of my class, had several profs at my school say they'll make calls and recommend me when the time comes (all are former clerks), law review, summer associate at top firm as a 1L, and externing with a District Court judge in this fall semester. Is it worth transferring out of my school to increase my odds of clerking despite all of this? I've heard viewpoints go both ways, just looking for a little extra knowledge. Clerking is very important to me, it's one of my primary goals, and I want to work as a litigator in the long term.

Thank you so much for any advice!!

I'm assuming your somewhere between WUSTL and Minnesota. Any of those schools will give you competitive stats to go to a COA spot, but, as usual, hiring can be dicey so there's no guarantee. Assuming you stay Top 5%, even Top 10%, at any of those schools, then you should be able to move into COA spot in the local region (i.e. WUSTL to the 8th, Emory to the 11th).

The hard part is saying what's the benefit of going to CCN or HLS. Well, if you go to HLS, kill it in terms of grades, and John Manning thinks you're the most brilliant student in the past decade, you'll land a feeder and have a great shot at SCOTUS. On the other hand, if you go to Columbia, get average grades, and have to rest on what you did 1L, then you've undercut a lot of your potential as a clerkship candidate. So it's impossible to know what the added benefit of going is.

I love clerking and I'd die for a SCOTUS clerkship. But there's no way I'd stake a huge decision based on that. If you're just looking for any old clerkship, you're in a great spot right now; if I were you, I'd stay put. But there's a bunch of other factors that go into a decision to transfer -- I'd focus on those more.

This was really helpful, thank you so much!! I agree with a lot of what you said, I'm really nervous that if I left I would lose my higher ranking spot. I'm also hoping that I could get published off law review at my school and I'm not sure that would be possible at a higher ranked school.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I tend to agree with Citizen Genet - at the moment, you're in a good spot, and it's hard to know where you'll end up at HLS/CLS. In terms of clerking, people are applying earlier and earlier now that the plan is dead, you'll only have 1 semester of grades from your new school, you don't know where you'll end up at the new school, you won't have a lot of time to make relationships with professors there, you may not make law review at the new school. You may end up relying heavily on your 1L qualifications anyway, so that transferring may not really make much difference clerking-wise. So if you're looking for top of the heap elite clerkships, maybe transferring will be necessary, but I don't think you need to do an elite clerkship to benefit from clerking. (Am also probably biased on this point.)

But like CG said, there are lots of other factors to consider for transferring, and in this case they're probably more important. I guess I doubt transferring would really hurt your chances, but it seems hard to predict how much it will help.

[beepboopbeep]

Specifically, I'm considering transferring out of my t20 school to go to CCN or HLS, mainly because of the clerkship stats. I'm in the top 3% of my class, had several profs at my school say they'll make calls and recommend me when the time comes (all are former clerks), law review, summer associate at top firm as a 1L, and externing with a District Court judge in this fall semester. Is it worth transferring out of my school to increase my odds of clerking despite all of this? I've heard viewpoints go both ways, just looking for a little extra knowledge. Clerking is very important to me, it's one of my primary goals, and I want to work as a litigator in the long term.

Thank you so much for any advice!!

I'm assuming your somewhere between WUSTL and Minnesota. Any of those schools will give you competitive stats to go to a COA spot, but, as usual, hiring can be dicey so there's no guarantee. Assuming you stay Top 5%, even Top 10%, at any of those schools, then you should be able to move into COA spot in the local region (i.e. WUSTL to the 8th, Emory to the 11th).

The hard part is saying what's the benefit of going to CCN or HLS. Well, if you go to HLS, kill it in terms of grades, and John Manning thinks you're the most brilliant student in the past decade, you'll land a feeder and have a great shot at SCOTUS. On the other hand, if you go to Columbia, get average grades, and have to rest on what you did 1L, then you've undercut a lot of your potential as a clerkship candidate. So it's impossible to know what the added benefit of going is.

I love clerking and I'd die for a SCOTUS clerkship. But there's no way I'd stake a huge decision based on that. If you're just looking for any old clerkship, you're in a great spot right now; if I were you, I'd stay put. But there's a bunch of other factors that go into a decision to transfer -- I'd focus on those more.

I haven't been through the process yet, but UofC OCS has largely drilled into us that the competitive feeders are mostly hiring during first semester of 2L year now that the plan's dead - is that borne out by others' experiences? If true, seems like much of the benefit of transferring solely to be more competitive for clerk hiring would dissipate - going to be very hard to line up recs at the new school in the first month or two or classes.

That said I'm sure there are less competitive CoAs hiring later on; we get announcements of acceptances and many of them even at this point in the year are CoA. Would probably depend on whether you want to clerk in the district your school is in, or whether moving to H/CCN would give you a leg up in a particular circuit you're trying to focus on. Do you have a particular circuit in mind? Is it one your current school has sent clerks to before?

[A. Nony Mouse]

I have absolutely no personal experience with competitive feeders, but I bet U of C's OCS does, so that makes sense to me.

Keep in mind, of course, that people can and do move from DCt -> COA or firm -> DCt -> COA or firm -> COA, so it's not like if you transfer, you can never benefit from the new school/profs/etc. - you may just benefit a little later, if you end up applying as an alum or doing a couple of clerkships. (No idea how this ties into feeders/SCOTUS chances, mind you, but SCOTUS especially is such a slim chance, I wouldn't make a decision to transfer based on that.)

[Anonymous User]

Specifically, I'm considering transferring out of my t20 school to go to CCN or HLS, mainly because of the clerkship stats. I'm in the top 3% of my class, had several profs at my school say they'll make calls and recommend me when the time comes (all are former clerks), law review, summer associate at top firm as a 1L, and externing with a District Court judge in this fall semester. Is it worth transferring out of my school to increase my odds of clerking despite all of this? I've heard viewpoints go both ways, just looking for a little extra knowledge. Clerking is very important to me, it's one of my primary goals, and I want to work as a litigator in the long term.

Thank you so much for any advice!!

I'm assuming your somewhere between WUSTL and Minnesota. Any of those schools will give you competitive stats to go to a COA spot, but, as usual, hiring can be dicey so there's no guarantee. Assuming you stay Top 5%, even Top 10%, at any of those schools, then you should be able to move into COA spot in the local region (i.e. WUSTL to the 8th, Emory to the 11th).

The hard part is saying what's the benefit of going to CCN or HLS. Well, if you go to HLS, kill it in terms of grades, and John Manning thinks you're the most brilliant student in the past decade, you'll land a feeder and have a great shot at SCOTUS. On the other hand, if you go to Columbia, get average grades, and have to rest on what you did 1L, then you've undercut a lot of your potential as a clerkship candidate. So it's impossible to know what the added benefit of going is.

I love clerking and I'd die for a SCOTUS clerkship. But there's no way I'd stake a huge decision based on that. If you're just looking for any old clerkship, you're in a great spot right now; if I were you, I'd stay put. But there's a bunch of other factors that go into a decision to transfer -- I'd focus on those more.

I haven't been through the process yet, but UofC OCS has largely drilled into us that the competitive feeders are mostly hiring during first semester of 2L year now that the plan's dead - is that borne out by others' experiences? If true, seems like much of the benefit of transferring solely to be more competitive for clerk hiring would dissipate - going to be very hard to line up recs at the new school in the first month or two or classes.

That said I'm sure there are less competitive CoAs hiring later on; we get announcements of acceptances and many of them even at this point in the year are CoA. Would probably depend on whether you want to clerk in the district your school is in, or whether moving to H/CCN would give you a leg up in a particular circuit you're trying to focus on. Do you have a particular circuit in mind? Is it one your current school has sent clerks to before?

My understanding is that the process is beginning crazy early this year and that no one really knows who will be hiring/when (please correct me if i'm wrong). I structured my first semester 2L to be super clerkship oriented because I figured being from t20, no one would look at me unless I really worked to make myself noticed (i.e. Dist. Ct. externship/fed cts/some other stuff). I'd really like to go either Second or Ninth Circuit and people from my school have gone there before but it's a little more frequent for people to go to the Eighth, Sixth, or Fifth. I have next to no chance of getting a clerkship (unless its Dist. Ct.) in the district where my school is in.

[Emma.]

I love clerking, but I wouldn't recommend transferring just for a bump in clerkship chances. Clerking is fun, but it is just one year. Especially if you would be going from a substantial scholarship at your present school to zero aid at the new school, it seems crazy to me to pay two years of tuition just for a better chance at a clerkship.

And as others have pointed out, if you kill it at your new school it might boost your chances, but you're almost certainly better off if you stay at your current school and stay at the top of your class than you would be if you transferred and went from top of the class at your current school for 1L to middle of the pack at your new school.