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I currently have two interviews lined up with two judges on the same Circuit. The second interview is a week and half after the first. After doing some research, I think I would prefer to clerk for the second judge. But I would be very happy to clerk for either. That being said, if I do get an offer from the first judge before my second interview, is it appropriate to ask for a week to give my answer, in order to attend the second interview? Or should I accept the offer and cancel the second interview?

In my experience, the judge will let you know if you are offered how much (if any) time you have.

Under the "plan" I think they are supposed to give you 48 hours to decide (or something like that).

I'm not sure how a judge would react if you told them you had another interview and wanted to wait a couple weeks. They would understand, but it signals that they are your second choice. It strikes me as needlessly risky, but other people might disagree.

If these were different circuits, you could just take both interviews and ask a judge if they would be open to deferring a year (e.g., you take the first judge for 2021, and the second judge for 2022). It's not unheard of, and they might be open to the idea if they really like you.

dvlthndr wrote:Under the "plan" I think they are supposed to give you 48 hours to decide (or something like that).


If these were different circuits, you could just take both interviews and ask a judge if they would be open to deferring a year (e.g., you take the first judge for 2021, and the second judge for 2022). It's not unheard of, and they might be open to the idea if they really like you.

Eh, dunno why OP would want to do two appellate clerkships? Waste of a year + $$$ unless one is a feeder and this is a SCOTUS play.

OP, assuming the above isn't true--ie, these are both traditional COA opportunities--and you'd actually be happy to work for either, no reason to needlessly antagonize your less-preferred judge. If s/he offers a week, obviously take it. But if s/he seems like s/he wants your decision now, accept and cancel.

I have no experience with this since I accepted my offer immediately, but my understanding was it was bad form to turn a judge down once you have been offered. I'm not saying this to passive aggressively push that on you in any way OP. It's really more me coopting your thread, so I apologize. Does anyone have experience actually turning a judge's offer down?

I think you’re really supposed to accept on the spot. I’ve always heard it is career and law school career center suicide to decline an offer. Even if some judges will be nice and let you think about it, the idea is that you shouldn’t apply to a judge you wouldn’t accept, and it’s kind of insulting to them if you ask to think about it.

Can't disagree more with the above. I asked my CoA judge for a night to talk it over with my partner (despite no apparent offer of time to think), and the answer was, "of course." If he was offended, he never showed it. While my coclerks and I were on the other side of the table, a couple of the next-year clerks who accepted offers also asked for time and got it, some up to several days. It's not as uncommon as some in this thread seem to be making it out to be. And just asking for a night to think about it doesn't necessarily mean serious consideration to saying no; it's just a big life decision, and actually being face-to-face with it is different than "this might happen," especially when SOs and/or kids are in the picture. For 51 weeks out of the year, I would be reasonably surprised if a judge denied a request for a night or more to think about it. Plan week might be different, for as long as that stays a thing. Maybe other judges might take more personal offense than did my judge, but I would question whether you would want to clerk for them.

The other reason I disagree is that this has basically nothing to do with OP's question. A week and a half is a very different ask, and that's something my judge probably would have said no to. I would probably contact Judge 2's chambers and say you will be in town on X day and ask if there's any possibility you can come in then, assuming Judges 1 and 2 are in the same city.

beepboopbeep wrote:Can't disagree more with the above. I asked my CoA judge for a night to talk it over with my partner (despite no apparent offer of time to think), and the answer was, "of course." If he was offended, he never showed it. While my coclerks and I were on the other side of the table, a couple of the next-year clerks who accepted offers also asked for time and got it, some up to several days. It's not as uncommon as some in this thread seem to be making it out to be. And just asking for a night to think about it doesn't necessarily mean serious consideration to saying no; it's just a big life decision, and actually being face-to-face with it is different than "this might happen," especially when SOs and/or kids are in the picture. For 51 weeks out of the year, I would be reasonably surprised if a judge denied a request for a night or more to think about it. Plan week might be different, for as long as that stays a thing. Maybe other judges might take more personal offense than did my judge, but I would question whether you would want to clerk for them.

The other reason I disagree is that this has basically nothing to do with OP's question. A week and a half is a very different ask, and that's something my judge probably would have said no to. I would probably contact Judge 2's chambers and say you will be in town on X day and ask if there's any possibility you can come in then, assuming Judges 1 and 2 are in the same city.

Yeah, I think this is something that depends on the judge. Law schools love to tell law students that you must immediately accept on the spot or your career is over. It's a scare tactic to protect the law school. Some judges expect an answer on the spot. Some judges will give you time. Some judges won't be offended if you say no. Judges are usually pretty upfront about it all. When he offered me the job, my D. Ct. judge offered to give me time to mull it over even after I accepted on the spot.

Yea, that sounds right to me, especially re: this is common advice from law school CSOs that benefits the law school more than the candidate (which is why you hear non-clerks parroting it). I don't doubt there are judges who will expect an acceptance right away. But I don't think accept on the spot is so widely expected that I'd never counsel someone otherwise, and I suspect that even among judges who expect on the spot acceptance, the consequences to the candidate of asking for time are probably rarely fatal to their chances. At most I would expect a "no, please let me know right now so I can move on to the next candidate or not." Of course, that's not to say it's a zero percent chance.

Y’all make whatever assumptions you like about my experience or why exactly I give the advice I give. I’ll certainly not confirm or deny my work experience. However, I think it’s very immature at best to be suddenly confronted with the scary reality of actually getting a clerkship offer, to the point where you have to think about it before accepting it. I simply think the time to think about the reality of accepting that position (or any position) is before you apply. You absolutely will have some who will have no problem giving you the time, some who will be offended, and everything in between. But unless the candidate learns some new information about the judge or position after getting the interview, you won’t convince me that there are valid reasons to need more time to think about it. The only reason is to try to hold out for a clerkship that is perceived as “better”...and that’s pretty bad form IMHO.

Edited to clarify: I’m not parroting my school’s CSO.

My experience has been judges giving time to consider, one expressly bc they knew taking the clerkship would mean living long-distance from my spouse, and they wanted to give me the time to find something else if that was going to work out. So I think a lot of judges are actually reasonable about this.

I think also that a candidate should ALWAYS feel free to turn a clerkship down. Ideally, yes, you won’t apply somewhere you can’t see yourself living and you’ll get those kinds of plans squared away before applying. I don’t think it’s a good look to apply everywhere, interview in BFE, and say no because you can’t imagine living in BFE after all. But if you go on the interview and realize you simply can’t work with that specific judge (and I think this is very rare but I don’t want to discount it entirely), then turn it down.

Also, frankly, any judge who gives you time to decide is giving you the ability to turn the position down, IMHO. Some may be a bit peeved if you do, but time to decide and auto-yes aren’t really compatible.

And if the judge gives you time, turning them down for another offer is fair. If the time allows you to receive another offer (whether you’d interviewed before or after getting the time-to-decide offer), taking another offer is fair. Not at all judges will give you enough time for this to happen, but some will (mine both gave me over 2 weeks). The amount of time may depend on when you are in the hiring cycle more generally too - as beep mentioned, this may not happen the first week you can interview on the Plan. Both my interviews were early in the cycle and off plan, so judges felt they had some time. So this won’t always happen, you can’t count on it, but it might. (I agree that the OP would be best off trying to move up their second interview.)

(I do think that if after an interview you decide you couldn’t work with a specific judge, or even that you couldn’t work in BFE after all, and the judge hasn’t yet made an offer, you should actively withdraw as soon as you make that decision, rather than wait to see if you get an offer. You can cite plans changing or simply make up taking a different job and remove yourself from consideration.)

Halp wrote:Y’all make whatever assumptions you like about my experience or why exactly I give the advice I give. I’ll certainly not confirm or deny my work experience. However, I think it’s very immature at best to be suddenly confronted with the scary reality of actually getting a clerkship offer, to the point where you have to think about it before accepting it. I simply think the time to think about the reality of accepting that position (or any position) is before you apply. You absolutely will have some who will have no problem giving you the time, some who will be offended, and everything in between. But unless the candidate learns some new information about the judge or position after getting the interview, you won’t convince me that there are valid reasons to need more time to think about it. The only reason is to try to hold out for a clerkship that is perceived as “better”...and that’s pretty bad form IMHO.

Edited to clarify: I’m not parroting my school’s CSO.

I know half a dozen people who got offers, and then followed up with their preferred judges immediately (usually because of preferred locations, not prestige). Some got the offer after the follow up, some didn’t, but all are doing very well in their careers.

Elston Gunn wrote:

Halp wrote:Y’all make whatever assumptions you like about my experience or why exactly I give the advice I give. I’ll certainly not confirm or deny my work experience. However, I think it’s very immature at best to be suddenly confronted with the scary reality of actually getting a clerkship offer, to the point where you have to think about it before accepting it. I simply think the time to think about the reality of accepting that position (or any position) is before you apply. You absolutely will have some who will have no problem giving you the time, some who will be offended, and everything in between. But unless the candidate learns some new information about the judge or position after getting the interview, you won’t convince me that there are valid reasons to need more time to think about it. The only reason is to try to hold out for a clerkship that is perceived as “better”...and that’s pretty bad form IMHO.

Edited to clarify: I’m not parroting my school’s CSO.

I know half a dozen people who got offers, and then followed up with their preferred judges immediately (usually because of preferred locations, not prestige). Some got the offer after the follow up, some didn’t, but all are doing very well in their careers.

Yeah, in retrospect my initial post probably overstates the risk, in the sense that it isn’t an inevitability that it will hurt you. I didn’t mean that it’s literally career insta-death.

But I stand by my statement that you do risk hurting yourself by doing this, and for what? Time to think about stuff you probably could have thought of earlier. A more accurate summation of my thoughts is this: requesting time to think about an offer is almost all downside because of the risk that you will offend a judge and either end up with no clerkship or alienate your CSO, and little to no legitimate upside (unless there is some new information or realization you come to after accepting an interview). I still think that the time to talk to your SO or do whatever else you gotta do is before applying. Finally, and I know this is more just my personal sensibilities, but I do find it pretty disrespectful/borderline entitled to treat any judge like your second choice (even if they are). To me, the danger that one of your “safety” judges offers you the job before your dream judge is just a risk you run when applying to a “safety” judge.

Here’s what I’ll say: Usually the judge understands a lot of people feel strong pressure to say yes immediately. So if s/he is comfortable with you taking time to think about it and press higher choices for offers, then s/he will probably bring up that you can have some time to think about it. I agree that generally speaking it’s not great for the applicant to bring up the idea.

But you have to apply to so many clerkships, and it’s a year of your life. For lots and lots of people, saying yes to the first judge who offers them would mean spending a year very far away from all the most important people in the world to them. The idea that it’s disrespectful to take a couple days to see if a judgewants to hire you who sits, eg, closer to your husband is crazy to me. It privileges the feelings of some of the most privileged lawyers in the country over real-life stuff that actually matters.

Elston Gunn wrote: But you have to apply to so many clerkships, and it’s a year of your life. For lots and lots of people, saying yes to the first judge who offers them would mean spending a year very far away from all the most important people in the world to them. The idea that it’s disrespectful to take a couple days to see if a judgewants to hire you who sits, eg, closer to your husband is crazy to me. It privileges the feelings of some of the most privileged lawyers in the country over real-life stuff that actually matters.

But you.... don't have to apply to clerkships across the country. Like, *you* expressed an interest in this specific job lol. If the judge wants to hold open the clerkship offer to let you shop it around, that's very kind of him/her, but the idea that they have some sort of ethical obligation to let you maximize your professional opportunities is sorta ridiculous

It's obviously judge dependent and only a former clerk is likely to know and tell you whether the judge you're interviewing with would be receptive to that question.

As an anecdote, however, I interviewed with a district court judge who made an offer during the interview. I accepted immediately. Then he offered me the opportunity to clerk for one or two years. So I asked him when he would like my decision. He must have misunderstood my question because he seemed taken aback, like he looked at me confused, and somewhat offended that I hadn't immediately accepted the offer. So I clarified that I meant the 1 v. 2 years thing and that I did accept the offer to clerk. He visibly relaxed. He isn't a bad guy, but when you've been in that role (lifetime appointment to a prestigious job) for a long time, you kind of lose touch with reality and small things like that might offend you. And I understand where he's coming from because he's used to lots of students courting him for the clerkship and to find a wishy-washy one (even for good reasons) is kind of jarring. If I had asked for time to consider he would have allowed it (I know this after clerking for him), but I doubt it would have been for more than a few days and definitely not for a week and a half so I could interview with another judge that I preferred.

Also, I know someone who got an offer to clerk (I don't remember if D. Ct. or COA) and they asked for a few days to consider. The judge said yes, then the next day the judge's assistant called back to rescind the offer. Just be careful because the judge might be looking to fill spots quickly and if you take too long they'll move on to someone who shows that they're all in for that position.

While I'm pro-turning down a clerkship if that's what's right for you, I'm a little confused by some of this discussion. People "have to apply to so many clerkships" because the job is super competitive and you don't know who's going to be interested in hiring you. If you can feel reasonably confident that you'll even get more than one offer (and I know there are some of these people out there, but I don't think it's most candidates), then just apply to places that won't require you to spend the year away from the people important to you. If you don't feel confident that you're going to be able to command that kind of location, then you have to decide which you want more - a clerkship, or not to spend a year away from people who matter to you. There are lots of candidates who are going to end up in the place far away from loved ones *because that's the only offer they get* - so you have to be prepared for that to happen before you start. (I think Elston Gunn went to Yale so may be in a different position than some other candidates?)

So wrt location, I generally agree you have to make your choices ahead of time and be ready to go to any of the places you apply. If a judge *offers* you time to make a decision, I think you are free to do whatever you want wrt to pursuing other opportunities. But I wouldn't ask for time to decide based on hoping a judge in a location you like better will make you an offer. I can see maybe asking for time to decide *if* you already had an interview with another judge and that judge hasn't decided yet was intended to do so soon - and I know people who've been in that position who have had the undecided judge ask them to tell them before they accept another offer, which is a whole additional wrinkle to this process. But mostly I think *asking* for time to decide is a little dodgy unless there are circumstances outside of your control - like, "my spouse is in the military and finds out their new placement in 5 days" or something. I get the "can I have a night to talk it over with my SO" request because I think that's clear you're not trying to bargain with the offer, but I also get wondering what needs to be discussed when the possible outcomes were clear going into the interview.

And to follow up to the post above mine: some judges definitely will prioritize filling the position quickly, especially if you are on a more traditional hiring schedule and a lot of hiring is happening in that particular moment (again, I was applying pretty early so giving me time didn't pose problems for the judge). Judges have to hire every year (or every other year at most), and it's a hassle and very few people enjoy it and most just want to get it over with, as well as having lots of other things on their plates. So if you need time to decide and another candidate doesn't, and the judge is really fine with both of you, you do risk losing out to the person who will end the pain of the hiring process sooner.

I didn’t read every post that closely, but it doesn’t sound like I particularly disagree with any of you. All I really took issue with was this:

Finally, and I know this is more just my personal sensibilities, but I do find it pretty disrespectful/borderline entitled to treat any judge like your second choice (even if they are)

It’s just not “disrespectful” to take two days to say yes to a judge.

If the judge doesn’t offer you time without prompting, then you probably shouldn’t ask for it (as I said).

I think this somewhat depends on timing as well. There are certain times of year where everyone involved knows that people are doing multiple interviews, and it's fairly reasonable in those circumstances to ask for a day or two to consider. Of course, those are also the times where judges are most afraid of getting scooped, so it's entirely possible they won't be receptive. But I'd be surprised if many judges would be so annoyed they'd rescind the offer or something; the modal worst case is probably just an "I'm sorry but I really need an answer now."

Only one data point, but my judge (on CA2/DC, for what it's worth) was totally cool with me taking a bit of time to consider other offers. (I got the offer on a Friday and asked for the weekend to think it over.)

Elston Gunn wrote:I didn’t read every post that closely, but it doesn’t sound like I particularly disagree with any of you. All I really took issue with was this:

Finally, and I know this is more just my personal sensibilities, but I do find it pretty disrespectful/borderline entitled to treat any judge like your second choice (even if they are)

It’s just not “disrespectful” to take two days to say yes to a judge.

If the judge doesn’t offer you time without prompting, then you probably shouldn’t ask for it (as I said).

Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. I simply think it’s bratty to apply to a specific judge and then be like “wait nah bro can I think about it first.” If you weren’t ready to work for the judge, you shouldn’t have applied to them.

So, to be fair, EG did say that if the judge doesn’t offer without you asking, you probably shouldn’t ask. And if the judge does offer you time to decide there’s no reason on earth not to take it.

nixy wrote:So, to be fair, EG did say that if the judge doesn’t offer without you asking, you probably shouldn’t ask. And if the judge does offer you time to decide there’s no reason on earth not to take it.

True. Actually, I’m not sure exactly where we differ, given that.