Winding down your clerkship Forum

[Anonymous User]

When and how do judges wind down their clerks? Presumably, judges make sure all your opinions are written etc and have to calculate that into their decisions (i.e., a judge won't have you hear something a week before you leave with a written opinion to issue).

[lavarman84]

You go until you're done. If you're at the D. Ct. level, odds are that your replacement will inherit some ripe motions that you couldn't finish, but it's not like there's a cutoff where you just stop working. If you're at the COA level, you finish the opinions and bench memos you can.

[mjb447]

Yeah, I didn't really have a "wind down" period for any of my clerkships. I basically just used my best judgment in prioritizing tasks where I was in a much better position than someone starting out fresh - cases where there had been hearings/argument (although we recorded everything, so it wasn't a huge issue) or cases that I was already pretty familiar with. I also left a short transition memo to aid in passing the baton.

If you're concerned about putting your successor in a bad spot, probably best to check in with your judge near the end of your clerkship and ensure that you're on the same page.

[Anonymous User]

Especially at the district court level, the work never ends. Unless your judge is an absolute taskmaster or you're at a super-human level of efficiency, there will still be motions pending when you leave. I just did my best to clean up the motions which were going to appear on the next six-month report, and anything else with a significant record or previously litigated motions which would bog down my successor.

Court of Appeals is a little different because there are more clerks to spread out the workload and fewer cases. And at least on the Sixth Circuit (where I clerked), the judges built extra time between the sittings in August and October to allow for new clerks to get up to speed.

[Anonymous User]

My experience was really different from most of the other people here. I clerked with a district court judge. Chambers had a courtroom deputy that assigned work to clerks so eventually when it got close to our last days (like maybe a month before) the CRD stopped assigning us new work. She just started saving everything for the next clerks to handle. Maybe that's a good benchmark for you? Like any hearings scheduled in the last month of your clerkship you don't handle those orders. Also, my judge liked to get all of the orders that his clerks wrote filed before they left, so he usually had a large pile of orders to review in the last month. We generally tried to finish orders to give him enough time to review and discuss with us before our last day, so we aimed to finish all orders at least a week before our last day. I ended up not having a lot to do during my very last week as a result of this.

Some people said that you should take care of cases that will appear on the next six-month report, but I don't know if it'll matter too much. I started my clerkship in august and was assigned a case that was on the September list so I had to just finish that up really quick. Of course, if you can it would be really nice of you to handle all the September/March list cases if your last day is close to those deadlines.

ETA: At the COA level, it would be great if you could finish all your orders (that you have writing responsibility for) before you leave. I worked on a case that dragged on forever, and toward the end of my district court clerkship (my judge sat by designation on one COA panel) I still had the COA case outstanding. I reached out to the COA clerk assigned to write the opinion and couldn't find them anywhere. Later found out they no longer worked there. Made my life harder than it should have been.

[Anonymous User]

Similar to the above anon. I had one of those enviable D. Ct. clerkships where the judge does most of the civil docket management and the case manager does almost all of the criminal docket stuff, and most of my work was just working on opinions that the judge directly assigned to me. Near the end, the judge stopped assigning anything potentially tricky or long; he either held things for the new clerk, or assigned them to the other (staggered 2-year/career) clerk. My last week I didn't have anything to do except train my replacement.

[lavarman84]

That's very interesting. In my D. Ct. clerkship, we were assigned parts of the docket based on the last digit in the case number. The CRD only worked on the criminal side of the docket. Us law clerks were totally responsible for the civil side. I made sure to clear out all the motions on the six month list before my replacement arrived.

[wwwcol]

That's very interesting. In my D. Ct. clerkship, we were assigned parts of the docket based on the last digit in the case number. The CRD only worked on the criminal side of the docket. Us law clerks were totally responsible for the civil side. I made sure to clear out all the motions on the six month list before my replacement arrived.

This was my experience, and I think (based on anecdata) its more representative than the other models in the two posts above.

[Br3v]

At a court of appeals, I would say most judges have a goal of getting opinions out for all cases that have already been argued (or determined not to be argued). There are some exceptions (really big cases, something your judge is really into and wants to spend extra time with, etc.) but a lot of opinions get punished in the summer (I.e., as the current clerks are wrapping up their year). Makes sense as it can take some time to get the new clerks up to date on a case you already know cold.