Top Law Schools

Just lined up a judicial externship for the fall (hoping to make my resume look less transactional). I was applying to fed. district and at the last second threw one app to a magistrate judge for no real reason and of course i got that one. if i'm applying for coa beginning this summer and into the fall is this at all helpful for my apps?

not k-jd with decent work experience, top 10%, t1 well-regarded regional, should grade-on law review but no other major school activity stuff

It will help if the magistrate judge knows COA judges s/he can recommend you to (this seems much more common with mag judges and DCt judges, though). It's perfectly good experience but otherwise it's unlikely to tip the scale one way or another.

Depending on what T1, top 10% is still likely to have a hard time with COAs - at mine it was usually only the top 1-3 students who got COAs, at least straight out. Doing a DCt or even SSC clerkship first was a huge boost for the people I knew.

No.

I externed for a well regarded district judge during my 2L year and I think it had a mildly positive impact on my applications to clerkships for after graduation. One reason for this impression is that in most of my clerkship interviews, my externship experience was brought up ("how did you like working in judge X's chambers?). Another is that one of the orders I drafted on a motion during my externship turned into my primary writing sample. A third is that the externship experience gave me content and comparatives to discuss in interviews. It also signaled more of an interest in litigation. Lastly the judge told me to include his name in my cover letter and that he'd take calls from his colleagues.

All that being said, I doubt it made much difference, compared to grades and shit.