Networking for federal clerkship with bad grades Forum

[Anonymous User]

I attend a t14 but have very bad grades, about a 3.3 - 3.4 right now. I have a teacher from high school who was a mentor to me and got me an internship with his cousin (a usdc judge) when I was a high schooler. I am still in touch with my teacher. Is it worth my time to try to network with the judge through him? Or is my gpa so low it would just be a waste? For what it's worth my grades have gone steadily up since my first semester when I bombed. I am a rising 3L.

[jess]

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[09042014]

I attend a t14 but have very bad grades, about a 3.3 - 3.4 right now. I have a teacher from high school who was a mentor to me and got me an internship with his cousin (a usdc judge) when I was a high schooler. I am still in touch with my teacher. Is it worth my time to try to network with the judge through him? Or is my gpa so low it would just be a waste? For what it's worth my grades have gone steadily up since my first semester when I bombed. I am a rising 3L.

Where are you working after school ends?

[Anonymous User]

No post grad job yet. And to clarify I meant district court not Washington DC.

[DELG]

You have no job and bad grades. No lead on a job is a waste of your time.

[Anonymous User]

You have no job and bad grades. No lead on a job is a waste of your time.

Lol ya that's true.

What's the right way to approach my teacher? I don't want him to feel like I'm using him to get a job or something. How does this sound :

Dear Mr. X:

I'm looking forward to seeing you at the end of the summer. I wanted to let you know that I am in the process of applying to post graduate jobs right now and I am very interested in clerking. In (year) you connected me with your cousin, (judge), and I interned with him for a summer. I was wondering if you would be open to connecting us again so I can discuss a potential clerkship with him next year.

Thank you,

Anon

[DELG]

You have no job and bad grades. No lead on a job is a waste of your time.

Lol ya that's true.

What's the right way to approach my teacher? I don't want him to feel like I'm using him to get a job or something. How does this sound :

Dear Mr. X:

I'm looking forward to seeing you at the end of the summer. I wanted to let you know that I am in the process of applying to post graduate jobs right now and I am very interested in clerking. In (year) you connected me with your cousin, (judge), and I interned with him for a summer. I was wondering if you would be open to connecting us again so I can discuss a potential clerkship with him next year.

Thank you,

Anon

If you interned w him why can't you just reach out to him yourself

[bk1]

Moved to appropriate forum.

Is it worth it to try? Of course. I know at least one person who got a district court clerkship through a judge he just happened to network with. I also agree with DELG that you should probably reach out to the judge yourself since you interned for him already.

You can't know whether it has any chance of success and my guess would be your odds probably aren't that great, but it really shouldn't take all that much of your time. Also keep in mind that a federal clerkship may not be as much of a salve for your job search as you may expect it to be (see the clerk job hunting thread), though without a postgrad job lined up you should go for it.

[Anonymous User]

I want to do government work. I was under the impression a clerkship would help for honors programs. Is that not true?
I guess I thought it would be better if he reached out to the judge because it's been a few years. Plus the judge is more likely to read his email and respond. And it will make me stand out.

Thank you bk for moving this to the right forum. Sorry about that.

[Holly Golightly]

If you're going to email the teacher and not the judge (which I agree seems kinda weird), I would say that you would be interested in talking to the judge generally or for another reason, not just for clerking. Be more subtle. Also realize that federal judges generally hire a long time in advance so even if successful, this wouldn't be for a job that's starting any time soon.

ETA: just saw you're a rising 3L, not a recent grad. (Also ew, I still hate that term.) Anyway, that means you're not as late as I thought, but my feeling is that with plan gone, even if successful you would still maybe be looking at starting a year after school ends.

Also, have you thought about state court clerkships? They're not nearly as grade-crazy as federal.

[Anonymous User]

K, so seems like every one agrees I should just contact the judge directly. I will do that instead. How do I go about doing that? Do I email his deputy clerk?

And I am pretty much exclusively considering magistrate alj and state court clerkships. I am only thinking of applying to this district court because I have a link to the judge.

[bk1]

Do you have his contact info? How long ago did you intern for him?

You could call say "hi, I'm X and I interned for Judge Y a few years ago, I was wondering if he had time to chat" and see if you got put through. It might not be that bad of an idea to contact your teacher since you could likely get the judge's direct line "hi, I was wondering if you had Judge Y's work number, I was considering applying to work for him as a clerk and wanted to talk to him about it." But just calling chambers probably isn't the worst idea. Also: check his court calendar online so you can see when he's likely not in court for when to call so you don't have to play phone tag.

[Pokemon]

The guy/gal interned for the judge when he was a high school teenager, so I can understand his thought of first reaching to the teacher. I personally do not think that is a bad idea to first contact the teacher, though he can also just email the judge.

But, I highly doubt the judge will give you a clerkship, and I would really not mention that, but would treat meeting him more like a networking thing where you ask general questions about students in your position. Maybe he knows a firm, maybe he likes you, maybe he can introduce you to someone else that can help you. If you are general, it is more likely that the judge will help you and it will not be as awkward as the clerkship talk would be.

[DELG]

The guy/gal interned for the judge when he was a high school teenager, so I can understand his thought of first reaching to the teacher. I personally do not think that is a bad idea to first contact the teacher, though he can also just email the judge.

But, I highly doubt the judge will give you a clerkship, and I would really not mention that, but would treat meeting him more like a networking thing where you ask general questions about students in your position. Maybe he knows a firm, maybe he likes you, maybe he can introduce you to someone else that can help you. If you are general, it is more likely that the judge will help you and it will not be as awkward as the clerkship talk would be.

I largely agree that you might not want to ask to clerk w this judge but perhaps instead say you want to clerk and ask him to point you in the right direction of where to apply to get a good clerking experience.

[Anonymous User]

Just a totally random question, but is this a CA judge?

And to contribute to the thread. I would go for the whole talking about wanting to clerk approach first. You don't want to come off to strong and outright ask for a clerkship. Say something like, "I was thinking of clerking and I was wondering if you had any advice." Something ike that.

[bk1]

Agreed with the above several posts.

[rayiner]

The rule for networking is to not ask for something the person can't give you. Leave it open-ended enough where he has some wiggle-room. If he says "hey, why don't you work for me?" Then great. But give him the option to say: "well, I know such and such judge who might be looking, etc."