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What are some good questions to ask a Judge during the interview?
Having trouble thinking of some.

"What differentiates a good lawyer from a great lawyer?" --- I've enjoyed the responses that I have received and it tends to get them talking for a while.

"What are you looking for in a clerk?/What makes a clerk successful?"

First judge I clerked for told me this was his favorite question from applicants and also always led to a good dialogue. I asked it during my 2nd clerkship interview and was told by the career clerk after getting hired that she really liked hearing that question.

If you're interviewing with a judge who went from the District Court (or some other court) to the COA, you can ask whether he/she misses working on the former court. For recent appointees, "do you miss private practice/wherever they came from" is always a good question to ask.

(1) When I interviewed for my clerkship, I asked my fed. dist. ct. judge, who is relatively new to the bench (read: <10 years), if there were any other judges he admired or considered mentors and why.

He liked that question, and it told me a lot about his philosophy on the bench.

(2) I also spent the few days before my interview reading his recent decisions, so we could discuss some of the substantive law that was fresh on his mind from those cases, especially if he made a tough call.

He told me he liked those questions too because it showed him that I had already invested time in his chambers.

I hope this is helpful!

Bumping this thread because I think there are more questions to discover.

In particular, I'm looking for a question that gets the judge talking about his or her judicial philosophy, but that's not as blunt as "Tell me about your judicial philosophy."

cold_logic wrote:Bumping this thread because I think there are more questions to discover.

In particular, I'm looking for a question that gets the judge talking about his or her judicial philosophy, but that's not as blunt as "Tell me about your judicial philosophy."

Catinthewall's first question (in the post above yours) seems like a good way to get at this.

What kind of liquor do you keep in the desk drawer?

"do you party?"

If you want to get to judicial philosophy, maybe you can ask something like, "what case/s has given you the hardest calls to make? Why was it hard?"