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Current District Court clerk interested in knowing my chances for a CA2 or CA3 clerkship (lets say to start in 2022 or 2023)

- Current D. Ct. clerk (not a "preftige" district but also not random/flyover country)
- T20, graduated top 5%
- Law review, editorial board
- V50 firm both summers
- Geographic ties to CA2/CA3 region (my D. Ct. is outside of this region but I am looking to work in NY long term to be closer to family)
- Don’t really care about the judge's politics that much

Do I have a shot? Thanks

You have a shot, but you need to apply broader than CA2 and CA3, at least CA1 too and ideally all 11. Unfortunately I doubt ties to NYC will do much, especially since you're not clerking in NY, doubly especially if you also didn't go to an NY-area law school. Beyond family convenience it also doesn't matter that much where you do a COA clerkship, and while CA2 or CA3-Newark would be ideal I'm sure, you'd have to be pretty lucky to land them.