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In case anyone's looking for something right now, J. James Browning is looking for an immediate start clerk to finish out the current term 9 months. Judge Browning clerked for Powell on SCOTUS.

Just for the record - as I understand it, he expects his clerks to work pretty much all day on Saturdays, every week. He will be right there working with you, but his chambers is run so that there is a LOT of work. That said, he seems like a genuinely nice guy and I think his former clerks really liked the experience of working for him.

He and his clerks work roughly 730AM-8PM Monday-Saturday and 730-noon on Sundays. They're not just putting in face time either, they crank out a staggering amount of work product.

Is this on OSCAR or something?

zot1 wrote:Is this on OSCAR or something?

Yes.

Yeah it's on OSCAR, but I brought it up because of the immediate start and the fact that people may not be set up to find those quickly.

Didn't know about his expected workload, but good to know.

He definitely sounds like a savage.

andythefir wrote:He and his clerks work roughly 730AM-8PM Monday-Saturday and 730-noon on Sundays. They're not just putting in face time either, they crank out a staggering amount of work product.

What in the fuckin hell?

Also, he employs:
3 term law clerks (plus maybe one temporary law clerk he got special funding for).
1 part time JA
1 full time CRD.

Thus, one of the law clerks gets paid part time (half), but still works the full schedule mentioned above.

meanwhile, other clerks in the same building are probably working 8:30-5:0pm M-F. Clerkship workloads are really the luck of the draw unless you're lucky enough to have a connection that will give you a non-bullshit answer.

Did anyone apply to this? Anyone contacted for an interview?

It's a more-or-less open secret that Browning is trying to get to the 10th circuit. He ends up getting cited all the time because there's so little caselaw in NM, and he publishes an insane amount on an insane number of topics.

Finding a Browning opinion on some issue brings mixed emotions. You know it will be well thought out and detailed. But it will also be something like 50 or 60 pages regardless of the issue.

Anonymous User wrote:Finding a Browning opinion on some issue brings mixed emotions. You know it will be well thought out and detailed. But it will also be something like 50 or 60 pages regardless of the issue.

exactly. Also, I'm now in a different circuit, but if I'm doing "all federal" research, and flipping through a list of cases from search term to search term (so not looking at the caption/jurisdiction), and I come across a Browning opinion, it's instantly recognizable. I always think, "This is a Browning opinion, isn't it!" and I'm ALWAYS correct. (Great way to find exhaustive statements of the law, though.)

Sounds like a miserable clerkship.

Anonymous User wrote:Sounds like a miserable clerkship.

I doubt it's a coincidence there's an opening 3 months into the contemplated lifecycle of the clerkship.

Yeah, especially in the District of New Mexico. There's really no cause to be working those kinds of hours in a backwater district.

FascinatedWanderer wrote:Yeah, especially in the District of New Mexico. There's really no cause to be working those kinds of hours in a backwater district.

It's one of the highest volume districts in the country.

But I think the caseload is such that a lot of it could be reduced by utilizing the mags.

FascinatedWanderer wrote:But I think the caseload is such that a lot of it could be reduced by utilizing the mags.

That's true, too.

Anonymous User wrote:Also, he employs:
3 term law clerks (plus maybe one temporary law clerk he got special funding for).
1 part time JA
1 full time CRD.

Thus, one of the law clerks gets paid part time (half), but still works the full schedule mentioned above.

This is just bizarre--how does he choose who only gets paid 50% to do the same work? Why doesn't he pay all of them 2/3? How awkward is it working closely in a group of 3 knowing one of you is only getting paid half what the other two are?

He advertises "Part time clerk opening", and I'd imagine everyone knows that getting paid ½ to do the same work is part of the deal. And yes, I imagine it is weird. Not a bad deal for the ½ time person on the other end, assuming they get to call it a regular clerkship on their resume.

Out of curiosity, looked at a few of this guys recent decisions. JFC. Three solid pages on SMJ standard. Sounds fun!

RaceJudicata wrote:Out of curiosity, looked at a few of this guys recent decisions. JFC. Three solid pages on SMJ standard. Sounds fun!

The other comments prompted me to do the same.

The writing is garbage. Why would anyone in their right mind spend five full pages describing the 12(b)(6) standard in a routine motion to dismiss? The amount of superfluous nonsense and of dicta in each order is impressive.

And half the orders on WL are discovery or evidentiary disputes - a magistrate's bread and butter.

Anonymous User wrote:

RaceJudicata wrote:Out of curiosity, looked at a few of this guys recent decisions. JFC. Three solid pages on SMJ standard. Sounds fun!

The other comments prompted me to do the same.

The writing is garbage. Why would anyone in their right mind spend five full pages describing the 12(b)(6) standard in a routine motion to dismiss? The amount of superfluous nonsense and of dicta in each order is impressive.

And half the orders on WL are discovery or evidentiary disputes - a magistrate's bread and butter.

I'd hope he uses the same five pages for each 12(b)(6) he sees? So he just had to write an all-inclusive one once, and then copy and paste.