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Transactional work and clerkships

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 5:35 am
by Anonymous User
This has been asked before but I wanted to again get replies. If I am planning on going into corporate transactional practice, is it worth it to do a federal clerkship? Not even necessarily one in DE, but just a federal clerkship anywhere?

Re: Transactional work and clerkships

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 6:47 pm
by Auxilio
Generally no, unless you really want to clerk for some reason. To be clear a federal clerkship in DE isn't really any more corporate than elsewhere. The federal clerkship (if any) for kind of corporate background would be SDNY I guess.

DE chancery and supreme courts often go into transactional practice, but those are both state courts.

Re: Transactional work and clerkships

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 7:14 pm
by Splurgles23
I think it's an intrinsically worthwhile and sometimes even enjoyable experience, even if there's no apparent and no direct pay-off to your immediate career goals. Few people can to see the inside of a judge's chambers -- how opinions are written, how judges interact, how law is made, basically -- from such a privileged position. Your writing, analytical, and critical thinking skills will improve; you'll get to help work on (depending on the court) interesting cases from diverse fields. And who knows, you might find something you didn't expect -- a different career path, a set of friends/connections, exposure to things off your previous path. That's only good. I've talked to at least some corporate lawyers who work on only and 100% transactional work for a V5 firm, and they both are happy they clerked and encourage young associates to do it even if they know they're going to do transactional work afterwards.