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Thoughts? We haven't really had a good discussion on the effects of the new hiring plan for the Class of 2020. It seems like a lot of hiring has occurred for 2020 and the jumpy judges will start to fill the rest of their 2020 slots w/ class of '19 and earlier.

No, not at all. There just really aren’t that many judges who hire 1Ls, and those that do (i.e. feeders who have always hired that far out) are going to hold out for 2019 and will probably still take class of 2020 over class of 2019. I’ve already seen plenty of OSCAR posts that judges won’t review apps for 2020-2021 until next year. And then plenty of judges who don’t do OSCAR will stay on the same hiring plan. So just apply like you were going to by paper and start OSCAR whenever you get access. Honestly even the schools who say they’re cracking down aren’t going to keep connected professors from referring people from Class of 2020.

This plan is bound to disintegrate just like the last one because of the prestige, competition, and professor referrall system that is so integrated into the clerkships hiring process.

It's actually worse for the class of 2019 because some judges will delay consideration of 2019 students for 2020-21 positions until 2020 students are also able to be considered.