COVID-19 Effects on Post-Clerkship 2020-21 Hiring Forum

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone have any insights on what hiring was like for clerks during the recession? I'll be finishing a D.Ct. clerkship this year and starting a COA clerkship in the fall. I did government 2L summer, but I'm hoping to join a firm post-clerkship. Obviously, no one knows how long this current recession will drag on, so mainly I'm looking for anecdotal evidence of what hiring was like for clerkships ending in 2009ish. Was the clerkship hiring pipeline affected as much as the traditional summer associate pipeline?

[objctnyrhnr]

Does anyone have any insights on what hiring was like for clerks during the recession? I'll be finishing a D.Ct. clerkship this year and starting a COA clerkship in the fall. I did government 2L summer, but I'm hoping to join a firm post-clerkship. Obviously, no one knows how long this current recession will drag on, so mainly I'm looking for anecdotal evidence of what hiring was like for clerkships ending in 2009ish. Was the clerkship hiring pipeline affected as much as the traditional summer associate pipeline?

I finished d court clerkship some years later than 2009 in a fairly major fairly competitive market (not nyc or dc but like right below that), and frankly it was still ice cold even as the general market had begun to recover to a degree. IMO the market has to be fairly warm as a whole for clerks to be able to confidently expect get fresh bites.

[Anonymous User]

It is probably still too early to tell. I guess there is overall improvement from where we were in late April at this point and that most firms were able to weather the storm with minimal damage, but the long-term implications of how this virus will affect the economy are still TBD.

[Anonymous User]

It was pretty bad. I was trying to “trade up” from the firm I summered in (in a major market) following my clerkship a year or two after that time. Despite applying fairly broadly, I think I had only one interview and they were looking to fill a spot in specific practice group I wasn’t terribly interested in. I don’t think the law firm market is nearly as bad right now as it was then (and is miles better than it was in 2009 - that was a bloodbath), and coming off two clerkships you probably will be better positioned than I was.

[Anonymous User]

It was pretty bad. I was trying to “trade up” from the firm I summered in (in a major market) following my clerkship a year or two after that time. Despite applying fairly broadly, I think I had only one interview and they were looking to fill a spot in specific practice group I wasn’t terribly interested in. I don’t think the law firm market is nearly as bad right now as it was then (and is miles better than it was in 2009 - that was a bloodbath), and coming off two clerkships you probably will be better positioned than I was.

I was a clerk at the "prestigious" court and I found that the market was a total bloodbath. I received a ton of interviews right before the shut-downs were beginning and found that almost all of them went well. But once COVID's consequences became more clear, almost all the firms went to radio silence. It's very disheartening.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, Covid stamped out a lot of my momentum. I had two boutique interviews set up that were both postponed and then cancelled. I also received an extremely quick ding from W&C just a few days after the national emergency; I interviewed like the day before. Best advice I have is to ask classmates/friends at firms CC your application/make hiring inquiries on your behalf.