Top Law Schools

Apologies if already answered sometime in the past on this forum, but I had a couple of questions about doing a 2-year federal clerkship (same judge).

First, do firms normally give you 2 years of credit for that clerkship? I.e. do you come in as a 3rd year (or 4th year if you worked for a year prior to the clerkship)? Second, is the clerkship signing bonus still 50k or does it get bumped up to reflect the fact that you clerked for 2 years? Finally, for people who clerked for 2 years, do you think it was a good experience over doing a 1-year clerkship?

Thanks in advance

My understanding is that you (firm dependent of course) only get one clerkship bonus per clerkship, even if that was for a two year period.

Many firms offer ~$50k for one clerkship, and ~$75k for two clerkships. Some firms offer $75k for a single two-year clerkship, but I don't know how standard that is.

It is most common that people get one or two years seniority from their clerkships, so they come in as 2 or 3 yr associates. I have heard of people coming in as 4 year, but I think it was a scenario in which they worked two years, then clerked for one. I am not sure that a firm would put someone in as a 4th year if they just worked 1 year then clerked for a 2 year term. Seniority is somewhat negotiable, so it's on the table, but not sure that it is very likely.




ETA: this topic is covered pretty frequently in here. You should search the forum and check the post-clerkship hiring threads.

My two-year district court clerkship wraps up next month.

Knowing what I do now, I think a two-year term is a significantly better experience than a one-year term. While I've gotten some clerkship senioritis in the last few weeks, I have felt so much more comfortable and confident in Year Two. At no time in the clerkship have I felt like I wasn't still learning or that my writing wasn't improving.

It helps that:

- I only had about 40k in student loans

- My judge is a wonderful boss and person

- The workload doesn't require much more than a Straight-40 hour week.

I’m currently a rising 3L who split her summer between two firms and has accepted a two-year clerkship for after graduation. One of the firms I worked for this summer will credit both years of my clerkship so that I’ll enter as a third-year associate. The other will only credit one year. Seems like it’s all firm-dependent.

The firm I summered for this year only gives one year of class credit for clerkships. I know one associate that did a two-year and a one-year clerkship before starting and started as a second-year. No idea what the impact on the bonus was, however. As others have said, it seems pretty firm-dependent.

For the past couple of weeks the View First Unread button at the top of each thread has not been working for me. Anyone else having that problem?