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My clerkship adviser has been supremely unhelpful on giving me an idea of my chances at landing a federal clerkship, so I'm hoping some of you might have insight/advice to share.

I'm a 2L at GULC and had slightly below median 1L grades. I look a couple of doctrinal courses in addition to seminars during 1st semester of 2L and did much better - my semester gpa was a 3.7, pulling my cumulative up to 3.36. I had a hard time adjusting to law school but feel like I've figured it out, so I'm fairly confident my grades will continue to stay at a 3.7 or above for my remaining 3 semesters of school.

I've accepted a v80 NYC SA position for this summer. I'm on a secondary journal (hoping for a managing editor position), moot court, and E-board of a campus affinity group. I'm white and LGBTQ. I'm from a big city so I don't have any geo ties that would help me land a clerkship, but I'm willing to go anywhere.

Do you think I have a shot at all at getting a federal clerkship straight out of law school? What gpa after 2L would I need for a fighting chance? What about after 3L? What would my chances be like after working at my firm for a year or two?

Not really worth speculating at this point, which is why your adviser isn't being helpful helpful. You've had one semester of good grades. Keep getting good grades and your chances will improve, you know?

Right now this is sort of like the college juniors who go "I have a 3.7, I've taken three practice LSATs, got a 172 on my latest -- chance me at HYSCCN." I guess we could do that but it's stupid because you don't have the 172?

I think your ability to fedclerk depends on your geographic flexibility. For example, did you know guam has a district that takes fedclerks? Point is that your school carries enough national prestige to be able to possibly swing a clerkship in a much less competitive district. That said, it might not line up with your graduation in exactly the way that you hope, but you absolutely shouldn’t stop trying. The trend with A3 is to hire after a couple years of biglaw these days, anyway.

A lot of judges are hiring for 2020 now so, based on your grades now (which is what you'd be applying with if you applied now) your chances aren't great unless your very flexible geographically. If your grades improve then your chances obviously improve. My advice would be to gets your grades up and then maybe apply for terms a year or two after graduation.

Thank you all! I'll definitely plan to keep my grades up and apply a year or so out of school. I'm down to go to Guam or anywhere else. Given my grades so far & how many credits I have left to complete, I probably won't be able to swing more than a 3.5ish...will that cut it? Is there anything else besides aiming for the best grades possible that I can do at this point?

Anonymous User wrote:Thank you all! I'll definitely plan to keep my grades up and apply a year or so out of school. I'm down to go to Guam or anywhere else. Given my grades so far & how many credits I have left to complete, I probably won't be able to swing more than a 3.5ish...will that cut it? Is there anything else besides aiming for the best grades possible that I can do at this point?

Whoops, forgot to note that I'm OP here.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Thank you all! I'll definitely plan to keep my grades up and apply a year or so out of school. I'm down to go to Guam or anywhere else. Given my grades so far & how many credits I have left to complete, I probably won't be able to swing more than a 3.5ish...will that cut it? Is there anything else besides aiming for the best grades possible that I can do at this point?

Whoops, forgot to note that I'm OP here.

Couple years in biglaw will help. In the meantime, write a great blue book cited 40 page paper, get an A in the class, then try to get it published by a tttt law review. Then do that again.