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Hi all,

I am starting a federal clerkship this fall. Two good friends of mine are getting married while I am clerking (back to back months).

I am a groomsman for one of the weddings and will need to attend a rehearsal dinner the day before the wedding. So I’ll need to miss a Friday even though the wedding is on a Saturday. I also expect to be a groomsman for the second wedding, which will likely require missing a Friday too.

Do y’all think this is OK? If so, how soon should I reach out to chambers to ask for the days?

Thanks.

Your judge will explain the vacation/time-off policies when you get to chambers. Don't reach out now. You'll get a feel for how to approach this once you've started and have been on the job for a little bit. In almost all chambers, this shouldn't be a problem.

It will entirely depend on your judge and what is going on at your court those days.
The first two judges I worked for would have been fine letting me take two days off so long as (1) I got all my work done on time and (2) there was not a hearing, trial, judges' conference, or oral argument going on that day (obviously depending on the type of court).
As for my current judge (and from what I understand my current court, as a whole), taking a day off for a wedding for someone who is not immediate family would NOT be a permitted, no less taking two days off in a relatively short period of time.
If you have already committed to the first wedding and plan on committing to the second wedding before starting your clerkship, you best contact chambers; otherwise, you might find yourself in a position where you have to back out of being at the rehearsal dinner very close to the date of the wedding.

Sorry if that is not the answer you were hoping for.

Anonymous User wrote:It will entirely depend on your judge and what is going on at your court those days.
The first two judges I worked for would have been fine letting me take two days off so long as (1) I got all my work done on time and (2) there was not a hearing, trial, judges' conference, or oral argument going on that day (obviously depending on the type of court).
As for my current judge (and from what I understand my current court, as a whole), taking a day off for a wedding for someone who is not immediate family would NOT be a permitted, no less taking two days off in a relatively short period of time.
If you have already committed to the first wedding and plan on committing to the second wedding before starting your clerkship, you best contact chambers; otherwise, you might find yourself in a position where you have to back out of being at the rehearsal dinner very close to the date of the wedding.

Sorry if that is not the answer you were hoping for.

Agreed that you need to check. Similar circumstances happened in my chambers, and my judge said no to the day off. My judge is not the only one with those feelings in the courthouse.

Had a similar thing happen during my clerkship -- three weddings within 6 weeks, 2 of which I wanted to travel for and needed to miss a Friday, the other of which I was best man and wanted to miss the Friday before in order to do prep stuff and help out the groom with what he needed. My judge generally didn't let clerks take vacations.

Before I started clerking (and before I had met my co-clerk), I asked my co-clerk if she'd be willing to cover for me those couple of days, and offered to do the same for her if/when she needed. I wanted to have something I could show the judge about being proactive before I asked. I then basically said I didn't have any other weddings/similar events during the clerkship and wouldn't ask to take off if they did come up. Judge was understanding and let me take the time off, since I had RSVP'ed before I started clerking, though I don't think Judge was thrilled about it at the time. Needless to say, I doubt Judge remembered even a few months later.

Wow are you all in preftigious districts or major cities? In my district taking a Friday off with advanced warning wouldn’t be a big deal. How do you manage interviews?

Anonymous User wrote:Wow are you all in preftigious districts or major cities? In my district taking a Friday off with advanced warning wouldn’t be a big deal. How do you manage interviews?

I'm the anon right above. One of N.D. Cal./C.D. Cal.; Judge is well-regarded but not a big name or anything. I know clerks in other chambers who had a much easier time taking time off, but our chambers was a little different. That said, though we didn't get time off, we kept pretty humane hours, even during trials. Judge was just really big on face time.

This likely would have been fine with my judge (with the caveat that you *absolutely* had to be back on Monday morning), but not with my spouse's judge. We both clerked in district courts in California.

If you really want to make your judge happy, never take any time off, don't do anything for yourself, and never ask for anything that would be an imposition on her. Same goes for when you go to a law firm, too. As Kozinski would say, they own you!

/Sarcasm. (But not really, since it's real life.)

Wow, I'm surprised that so many judges are strict on time off.

I'm the first anon that responded to OP. I also can't believe that so many judges are strict on time, but then again, I'm on a CoA--maybe district court is different? All of the other chambers I've talked to about vacation policy/time-off (admittedly, it's been only 3-4) have told me that their judges are generous. Hell, my judge closed down chambers entirely from a few days before Christmas through the new year. I still stand by most of my original post. OP, I think you should wait until you start and then bring this up to your judge. But I guess that it may be a problem for more than a few judges, especially if you're on the D.Ct.

on the CoA, so long as your bench memos get done on time, I see no reason why your judge would give you a hard time

Anonymous User wrote:I'm the first anon that responded to OP. I also can't believe that so many judges are strict on time, but then again, I'm on a CoA--maybe district court is different? All of the other chambers I've talked to about vacation policy/time-off (admittedly, it's been only 3-4) have told me that their judges are generous. Hell, my judge closed down chambers entirely from a few days before Christmas through the new year. I still stand by most of my original post. OP, I think you should wait until you start and then bring this up to your judge. But I guess that it may be a problem for more than a few judges, especially if you're on the D.Ct.

I'm on a D. Ct., and my judge has also been very generous, so I'm surprised as well. I figured that (being strict) would be more the exception than the rule.

I think it’s mostly personal preference (though judges in truly swamped jurisdictions may lean toward being stricter I suppose). Neither of my judges would have had an issue with this, but there were other judges in the same courthouses that absolutely would. So it will just depend on your judge (assuming nothing superpressing scheduled for the those weeks, like trial or the like).

During my D Ct clerkship, taking two days off would have been fine so long as no trial or hearing on that day

During my COA clerkship, taking a day off for a friend's wedding was not an option.

Bottom line, contact the JA in chambers or one of the current clerks and ask generally what the rules are about taking a day off.

Anonymous User wrote:on the CoA, so long as your bench memos get done on time, I see no reason why your judge would give you a hard time

This isn't necessarily the case. I know a COA judge who was funny about his clerks taking off the weekend before court week. Another required at least two of his clerks to be in chambers the week of Christmas. I suspect that leave policies are as idiosyncratic as judges themselves can be.

I agree with the advice to go ahead and reach out to chambers about this. A current clerk would probably be best, then the JA if you need to notify the judge.

Funny, as I used my clerkship as an excuse not to attend weddings...

(This will happen as you get older.)

Reading this forum, I’m somewhat surprised people had experiences where this would not have been okay. My major market fed d court judge would have been fine with it. I think chances are it’ll be fine, and if it turns out it’s not, then eat the costs or whatever. What’s the alternative? Not worth turning down a clerkship or anything obviously