Srinivasan Clerkship? Forum

[Anonymous User]

So how does someone like Srinivasan or Garland hire YLS clerks? That school is famously opaque about differentiating students.

[Anonymous User]

So how does someone like Srinivasan or Garland hire YLS clerks? That school is famously opaque about differentiating students.

Virtually all Hs as well as other indicators of excellence like a publication on a pressing topic in federal appellate litigation. And superlative recommendations from big name professors who say things like, "This is the best student I've ever had in my X years of teaching." Or "this student reminds me a lot of this other student, whom you hired and loved. In fact, this student might even be better than that one."

[Anonymous User]

So how does someone like Srinivasan or Garland hire YLS clerks? That school is famously opaque about differentiating students.

I think it’s not as opaque as commonly thought about. The H/P curve is about as “standard” as Stanford or Harvard for black-letters, and credible candidates are going to have taken some selection of admin / fed courts / torts / evidence / crimpro / other “normal” doctrinal classes that follow the curve. Rec letters (important for 1L fall shadow grades) and other gold stars (YLJ, Coker, certain application clinics, RA gigs) make it not the hardest to discover who’s a superstar. By plan time, libs will have 12ish graded classes, which probably means 4ish real black-letter grades at least plus the power of a potential Eskridge RegState
H or Gluck Legislation H make Yale apps more “Harvardian” than might otherwise be apparent.

[Anonymous User]

So how does someone like Srinivasan or Garland hire YLS clerks? That school is famously opaque about differentiating students.

Virtually all Hs as well as other indicators of excellence like a publication on a pressing topic in federal appellate litigation. And superlative recommendations from big name professors who say things like, "This is the best student I've ever had in my X years of teaching." Or "this student reminds me a lot of this other student, whom you hired and loved. In fact, this student might even be better than that one."

Publications are a tad overrated as causal factors instead of correlated ones. A lot of Yalies end up trying to convert their SAWs into a Note, but that’s more common after 2L than during it. Some exceptions, obviously, but it’s *hard* to fit in a Note-level piece of scholarship with several papers, Journal commitments, RA work, “prestigious” clinics, classes that require brief writing / moot court, etc.

[Anonymous User]

So how does someone like Srinivasan or Garland hire YLS clerks? That school is famously opaque about differentiating students.

Virtually all Hs as well as other indicators of excellence like a publication on a pressing topic in federal appellate litigation. And superlative recommendations from big name professors who say things like, "This is the best student I've ever had in my X years of teaching." Or "this student reminds me a lot of this other student, whom you hired and loved. In fact, this student might even be better than that one."

Publications are a tad overrated as causal factors instead of correlated ones. A lot of Yalies end up trying to convert their SAWs into a Note, but that’s more common after 2L than during it. Some exceptions, obviously, but it’s *hard* to fit in a Note-level piece of scholarship with several papers, Journal commitments, RA work, “prestigious” clinics, classes that require brief writing / moot court, etc.

You'd be surprised at how many professors shadowgrade at YLS. In nearly all of my blackletters--including the ostensibly ungraded 1L fall classes--professors were happy to tell you about how you did in relationship to the rest of the class, particularly if you had one of the top exams; this matters for the high end of clerkships, where it's more likely than not that the judge will call some (for people like Sri, maybe even all?) of your blackletter professors and ask for information about exam outcomes beyond the H or P on your transcript. That's in addition to the other gold stars people chase outside of class, which another anon mentioned (RAing for professors with clerkship pull, and, to a probably much lesser extent, journal positions / competitive clinics).

[Anonymous User]

So how does someone like Srinivasan or Garland hire YLS clerks? That school is famously opaque about differentiating students.

Virtually all Hs as well as other indicators of excellence like a publication on a pressing topic in federal appellate litigation. And superlative recommendations from big name professors who say things like, "This is the best student I've ever had in my X years of teaching." Or "this student reminds me a lot of this other student, whom you hired and loved. In fact, this student might even be better than that one."

Publications are a tad overrated as causal factors instead of correlated ones. A lot of Yalies end up trying to convert their SAWs into a Note, but that’s more common after 2L than during it. Some exceptions, obviously, but it’s *hard* to fit in a Note-level piece of scholarship with several papers, Journal commitments, RA work, “prestigious” clinics, classes that require brief writing / moot court, etc.

You'd be surprised at how many professors shadowgrade at YLS. In nearly all of my blackletters--including the ostensibly ungraded 1L fall classes--professors were happy to tell you about how you did in relationship to the rest of the class, particularly if you had one of the top exams; this matters for the high end of clerkships, where it's more likely than not that the judge will call some (for people like Sri, maybe even all?) of your blackletter professors and ask for information about exam outcomes beyond the H or P on your transcript. That's in addition to the other gold stars people chase outside of class, which another anon mentioned (RAing for professors with clerkship pull, and, to a probably much lesser extent, journal positions / competitive clinics).

lmao at that point why not just grade the fucking students

[Anonymous User]

So how does someone like Srinivasan or Garland hire YLS clerks? That school is famously opaque about differentiating students.

Virtually all Hs as well as other indicators of excellence like a publication on a pressing topic in federal appellate litigation. And superlative recommendations from big name professors who say things like, "This is the best student I've ever had in my X years of teaching." Or "this student reminds me a lot of this other student, whom you hired and loved. In fact, this student might even be better than that one."

Publications are a tad overrated as causal factors instead of correlated ones. A lot of Yalies end up trying to convert their SAWs into a Note, but that’s more common after 2L than during it. Some exceptions, obviously, but it’s *hard* to fit in a Note-level piece of scholarship with several papers, Journal commitments, RA work, “prestigious” clinics, classes that require brief writing / moot court, etc.

You'd be surprised at how many professors shadowgrade at YLS. In nearly all of my blackletters--including the ostensibly ungraded 1L fall classes--professors were happy to tell you about how you did in relationship to the rest of the class, particularly if you had one of the top exams; this matters for the high end of clerkships, where it's more likely than not that the judge will call some (for people like Sri, maybe even all?) of your blackletter professors and ask for information about exam outcomes beyond the H or P on your transcript. That's in addition to the other gold stars people chase outside of class, which another anon mentioned (RAing for professors with clerkship pull, and, to a probably much lesser extent, journal positions / competitive clinics).

lmao at that point why not just grade the fucking students

Preserve the upside of a great rec / shadow calls, but stay “in the game” with a low H that would have been a B+ or the like elsewhere. Yale’s just maximizing its candidates. It’s also hugely more impactful for firms than for clerkships.

[The Lsat Airbender]

So how does someone like Srinivasan or Garland hire YLS clerks? That school is famously opaque about differentiating students.

Virtually all Hs as well as other indicators of excellence like a publication on a pressing topic in federal appellate litigation. And superlative recommendations from big name professors who say things like, "This is the best student I've ever had in my X years of teaching." Or "this student reminds me a lot of this other student, whom you hired and loved. In fact, this student might even be better than that one."

Publications are a tad overrated as causal factors instead of correlated ones. A lot of Yalies end up trying to convert their SAWs into a Note, but that’s more common after 2L than during it. Some exceptions, obviously, but it’s *hard* to fit in a Note-level piece of scholarship with several papers, Journal commitments, RA work, “prestigious” clinics, classes that require brief writing / moot court, etc.

You'd be surprised at how many professors shadowgrade at YLS. In nearly all of my blackletters--including the ostensibly ungraded 1L fall classes--professors were happy to tell you about how you did in relationship to the rest of the class, particularly if you had one of the top exams; this matters for the high end of clerkships, where it's more likely than not that the judge will call some (for people like Sri, maybe even all?) of your blackletter professors and ask for information about exam outcomes beyond the H or P on your transcript. That's in addition to the other gold stars people chase outside of class, which another anon mentioned (RAing for professors with clerkship pull, and, to a probably much lesser extent, journal positions / competitive clinics).

lmao at that point why not just grade the fucking students

to keep OCI easymode ya dingus

Firms aren't calling up your professors to ask how you did in Civ Pro