District court in a big city vs COA in a flyover area Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm willing to live wherever -- what opens up better career opportunities with BigLaw / UDSOJ honors?

[rpupkin]

I'm willing to live wherever -- what opens up better career opportunities with BigLaw / UDSOJ honors?

A district court clerkship is generally more useful for big law and DOJ.

[Anonymous User]

I'm willing to live wherever -- what opens up better career opportunities with BigLaw / UDSOJ honors?

I did a COA clerkship in a flyover area and a district court clerkship in a big city. I think the district court clerkship helped most in the city where I was located but the circuit clerkship helped most in other big cities.

E.g., a 9th Cir clerkship in Montana will help more for landing San Francisco or New York or DC interviews than a district court clerkship in LA. But the LA district court clerkship opens more doors in LA.

[Anonymous User]

From a hiring perspective, each clerkship opens up the most doors in the city in which the clerkship is located. The COA clerkship opens up the most doors in cities in which neither is located. So if you're deciding between an LA dct clerkship and a Tulsa COA clerkship and want to work in LA, the dct clerkship is probably marginally more useful in securing the LA job, but the COA clerkship will be marginally more useful in securing a NY, Chicago, SF, etc. job.

Re which is more professionally helpful once you get a job, it depends a bit on what you want to do. I did both COA and dct clerkships and have found that my COA clerkship comes up substantially more frequently in my current job: there are a number of former fed district clerks in my small workplace but I am the only fed COA clerk, so when appeals stuff comes up I'm often called on. I think both have been personally very helpful in different ways in me doing the best job I can do in my position.

[Person1111]

I'm willing to live wherever -- what opens up better career opportunities with BigLaw / UDSOJ honors?

I did a COA clerkship in a flyover area and a district court clerkship in a big city. I think the district court clerkship helped most in the city where I was located but the circuit clerkship helped most in other big cities.

E.g., a 9th Cir clerkship in Montana will help more for landing San Francisco or New York or DC interviews than a district court clerkship in LA. But the LA district court clerkship opens more doors in LA.

This is a very poor example of what is generally a good point.

[Anonymous User]

I'm willing to live wherever -- what opens up better career opportunities with BigLaw / UDSOJ honors?

A district court clerkship is generally more useful for big law and DOJ.

Can't comment on biglaw, but I agree that DCt is more helpful for USAO.

[Anonymous User]

I'm willing to live wherever -- what opens up better career opportunities with BigLaw / UDSOJ honors?

It depends a lot on what kind of firms, I think. V20 firms will be more excited about a COA. When you're looking at truly regional firms, local clerkships may be more important. Any firm will naturally prefer someone who has clerked for a judge that they're likely to appear in front of, but my D.Ct. clerkship is 1000 miles from my job (did not summer at that firm or in that city), so I really don't think where you clerk is that important. For Biglaw, at least coming off of a 4L clerkship, your school and your grades still matter tremendously. If you already had a good school and good grades, substantive interests and (to a lesser extent) bar admission will matter too, and my experience has been that they matter more than where you're clerking.

For DOJ, the advice is largely the same, although they may have a slight preference toward district courts. Either way, all of my friends who are clerking, Art. I up to COA, got DOJ honors when they applied.

In terms of skill development, I think a D.Ct. is only marginally more useful for Biglaw; your practice will mostly be discovery, and courts only see the disputes that absolutely cannot be resolved. And then there's courting partners (and eventually, clients), which is a critical part of practice—and something to which you're never exposed as a law clerk. Your judge is not going to use someone else's clerks if you do bad work; a partner will use another associate.

Skill development for DOJ: I think a D.Ct. would be a lot more useful, because prosecutors are in court way more than the average litigator, and criminal discovery is a lot more limited.

[TatteredDignity]

From a hiring perspective, each clerkship opens up the most doors in the city in which the clerkship is located. The COA clerkship opens up the most doors in cities in which neither is located. So if you're deciding between an LA dct clerkship and a Tulsa COA clerkship and want to work in LA, the dct clerkship is probably marginally more useful in securing the LA job, but the COA clerkship will be marginally more useful in securing a NY, Chicago, SF, etc. job.

I know you threw this out randomly, but both Oklahoma 10th Cir. judges are in OKC (just in case someone had her heart set on living in fabulous Tulsa for a year).

[Anonymous User]

One thing to keep in consideration is that federal judges are always very, very well-connected people. It probably doesn't matter too much if you've got the credentials to land a COA clerkship, but don't lose sight of the fact that a federal judge can be an invaluable connection in certain markets.

I clerk for a DJ who seems to know every lawyer in the state. Even though he sits in and is from a somewhat rural area, the amount of connections he has is astounding, but they are almost all in-state. My former co-clerk went to ask him about a certain firm's office in a major city and he responded with saying he was close friends with its managing partner. He called that managing partner and a couple weeks later my co-clerk got a job there.