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Are there judges who are particularly inclined to hire public interest folks? Is there a way to find out this information other than going judge-by-judge and seeing if the judge was once a public defender, for example?

There are, but unfortunately, you're pretty much at the mercy of knowing the individual judge's reputation...which isn't necessarily the same as googling his or her background. For instance, Judge McKee on the Third Circuit does a lot of PI hiring, but he wasn't a public defender; he was an AUSA.

Boulware (D. Nev.) and Stranch (6th Cir) like PI applicants. Several other judges have mentioned in their OSCAR profiles that they encourage applicantions from PI folks.

There's a whole thread on good judges for PI students: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=306872