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Anonymous User wrote:HYS student here with an EDNY and 2nd Circuit clerkship lined up with reputable judges 2 and 3 years after graduation, respectively. I withdrew all of my circuit court applications after securing my circuit court clerkship, but I realized that I forgot to withdraw a few that I sent via paper. One of those judges contacted me recently asking if I'm still interested in clerking for them immediately after graduation (I'll be working in big law immediately after I graduate). The judge sits on a non-2/9/DC circuit.

Is there any reason for me to consider this circuit court clerkship? I want to end up in private practice on the east coast and have no ties/interest in the circuit that the judge sits in.

Generally there isn’t much value to a second clerkship at the federal COA level, especially after you’ve already done two clerkships. Three clerkships (unless the third is SCOTUS, obviously) may send a signal to firms that you’re not serious about private practice. My judge has a near-categorical policy of not hiring someone who already has a clerkship on another circuit unless it’s the DC Circuit, since the caseload there is quite different from anything else.

Reasons you might want to take the third clerkship despite all this: you want to practice in the city/circuit in which this judge sits, the judge is a feeder for SCOTUS, the judge has strong ties to a field you want to enter (e.g. academia, DOJ) that neither of your other two judges can offer, or a third year of clerking would make more sense from a family/personal perspective than a year in biglaw. If none of those apply I would pass.

Thanks.

Very much agree w/the poster above, esp. this:

Reasons you might want to take the third clerkship despite all this: you want to practice in the city/circuit in which this judge sits, the judge is a feeder for SCOTUS, the judge has strong ties to a field you want to enter (e.g. academia, DOJ) that neither of your other two judges can offer, or a third year of clerking would make more sense from a family/personal perspective than a year in biglaw. If none of those apply I would pass.

I think probably 80 percent of situations are such that the third year does not make sense. But the exceptions above are valid. Three years' clerking is a long time to earn a government salary and put off the career progression at your firm/agency/university/etc. Most of my friends who did two years had serious senioritis by 1.75 years in. And firms definitely will raise and eyebrow. (You can totally explain away, but you'll need to explain).

~ HYS, CoA, now-lit boutique.