Less than a year of work experience -> JSP-11 or 12?

[albinododobird]

According to the OSCAR website, judicial clerk pay is determined by the following scale:

JSP-11, step 1 - Law school graduates with academic excellence and no legal work experience.
JSP-12, step 1 - One or more years of post-graduate legal work experience and bar membership of a state, territory, or federal court of general jurisdiction.
JPS-13, step 1 - Two or more years of post-graduate legal work experience and bar membership of a state, territory, or federal court of general jurisdiction

So if I graduate in May of 2021 and start working at a firm in, say, October 2021 until beginning a clerkship the following August/September, will I be in JSP-11 or JSP-12? Anyone have experience with this? I had kind of taken it for granted that if I graduated in 2021 and started clerking in 2022, I would get JSP-12, but now I'm not so sure.

[The Lsat Airbender]

You won't be able to hit 12 until October-ish 2022

[moon123]

I had a similar situation. You start off at JSP-11. After you have accumulated one year of work experience post bar passage, your local HR office should email something to your chambers where your judge has the option of promoting you to JSP-12.

[nixy]

Yeah, this ^ is correct. I graduated in May, started a clerkship in September, ended it the following August, and went straight to a second clerkship in August, and I was JSP-11 until I hit the year anniversary of starting at the first clerkship. It needs to be exactly a year.

[JustMe83]

Also, I believe that any time off you take between jobs does not count towards the one year, even if it's just a week or two.

[decimalsanddollars]

The above posters are right; just chiming in for a small clarification. It's one year of post-law school experience plus admission to the bar, not one year of post-bar-admission experience. A co-clerk of mine came in after 11 months of biglaw but only 9 months of licensure and was JSP-12 a month into the clerkship.

[nixy]

Yeah, I should have added I didn’t get admitted until October after I graduated, but got bumped up in September based on my work anniversary, not when I was admitted.

[albinododobird]

Great. Thank you all for your help. I was also under the impression that you were frozen in to whatever level you start at because of this sentence: "The hiring judge, as the appointing authority in accordance to JSP Qualification Standards, assigns the appointee's grade at time of appointment." But it sounds like you can get bumped up during the clerkship, which helps to alleviate my concerns.

[nixy]

Yes, you can get bumped up. It requires your judge signing off, but the vast majority of judges will be happy to do so. I have heard of one judge who wouldn’t bump people up during the clerkship (for budget reasons I think?) but they made it clear ahead of time, before anyone even got offered a job.

[Anonymous User]

Great. Thank you all for your help. I was also under the impression that you were frozen in to whatever level you start at because of this sentence: "The hiring judge, as the appointing authority in accordance to JSP Qualification Standards, assigns the appointee's grade at time of appointment." But it sounds like you can get bumped up during the clerkship, which helps to alleviate my concerns.

Current clerk here after ~2 yrs practice. I got bumped up when I hit two years without a problem. From what I've heard, the judges are always happy enough to sign off, you just should stay on top of HR when you hit the year of practice. Would be real dick of the judge to say no.