Off-plan feeder libs? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Do any of the selective / feeder libs jump ahead of plan for the right school / grades, even if they fill most of their class on plan?

[Anonymous User]

Do any of the selective / feeder libs jump ahead of plan for the right school / grades, even if they fill most of their class on plan?

As far as I know, no feeder liberals admit to hiring off plan. But "window shopping" is common, and the very best sometimes get offers (direct or implied) before the plan opens. This goes how you'd expect: big name professor at HYS (usually Y) chats with old law school buddy Judge ABC about this rockstar research assistant; Judge ABC "gets coffee" with said research assistant and promises her/him an offer once the plan opens. I've never heard of a feeder liberal hiring off plan without a big name professor behind the scenes. I doubt sending a cold application would do anything.

If by "feeder liberal" you mean "feeder to liberals," that's a different story. Certain moderate and conservative feeders hire liberals off plan and have luck getting them Supreme Court clerkships.

[Anonymous User]

No liberal feeders hire off plan to my knowledge. But like the above poster says, you'll often know you're getting interviews with them before the plan officially opens. At my HYS, you kind of knew professors were already talking about you to a judge a few days before the plan opened or would get an email saying that the school is going to push for you for a certain judge.

[Anonymous User]

No liberal feeders hire off plan to my knowledge. But like the above poster says, you'll often know you're getting interviews with them before the plan officially opens. At my HYS, you kind of knew professors were already talking about you to a judge a few days before the plan opened or would get an email saying that the school is going to push for you for a certain judge.

HYS sends emails to top applicants like this? Wow. My CCN would never.

[Anonymous User]

No liberal feeders hire off plan to my knowledge. But like the above poster says, you'll often know you're getting interviews with them before the plan officially opens. At my HYS, you kind of knew professors were already talking about you to a judge a few days before the plan opened or would get an email saying that the school is going to push for you for a certain judge.

HYS sends emails to top applicants like this? Wow. My CCN would never.

Chicago doesn't really send students to liberal feeders, only one every couple of years, but profs do reach out to judges (and vice versa) and I got advance warning on a few. None of them were feeders though and I think all were just 1-2 days before Plan day, not like in April or something.

[Anonymous User]

Do any of the selective / feeder libs jump ahead of plan for the right school / grades, even if they fill most of their class on plan?

As far as I know, no feeder liberals admit to hiring off plan. But "window shopping" is common, and the very best sometimes get offers (direct or implied) before the plan opens. This goes how you'd expect: big name professor at HYS (usually Y) chats with old law school buddy Judge ABC about this rockstar research assistant; Judge ABC "gets coffee" with said research assistant and promises her/him an offer once the plan opens. I've never heard of a feeder liberal hiring off plan without a big name professor behind the scenes. I doubt sending a cold application would do anything.

If by "feeder liberal" you mean "feeder to liberals," that's a different story. Certain moderate and conservative feeders hire liberals off plan and have luck getting them Supreme Court clerkships.

The apparent importance of RAing, student orgs, etc. at Yale for clerkships is bizarre to me. I guess since they have tons of students with identical transcripts they have to compete somehow, but I think I'm happier just focusing on my grades.

Off-topic but for those who didn't notice, 2020 employment numbers just came out and Yale's clerkship numbers were down a bunch for the second year in a row. Wash U, Texas, and Vandy put up great numbers, better than many T14s.

[Anonymous User]

Do any of the selective / feeder libs jump ahead of plan for the right school / grades, even if they fill most of their class on plan?

As far as I know, no feeder liberals admit to hiring off plan. But "window shopping" is common, and the very best sometimes get offers (direct or implied) before the plan opens. This goes how you'd expect: big name professor at HYS (usually Y) chats with old law school buddy Judge ABC about this rockstar research assistant; Judge ABC "gets coffee" with said research assistant and promises her/him an offer once the plan opens. I've never heard of a feeder liberal hiring off plan without a big name professor behind the scenes. I doubt sending a cold application would do anything.

If by "feeder liberal" you mean "feeder to liberals," that's a different story. Certain moderate and conservative feeders hire liberals off plan and have luck getting them Supreme Court clerkships.

The apparent importance of RAing, student orgs, etc. at Yale for clerkships is bizarre to me. I guess since they have tons of students with identical transcripts they have to compete somehow, but I think I'm happier just focusing on my grades.

Off-topic but for those who didn't notice, 2020 employment numbers just came out and Yale's clerkship numbers were down a bunch for the second year in a row. Wash U, Texas, and Vandy put up great numbers, better than many T14s.

This probably just indicates that judges are hiring farther and farther out. I assume Yale students want to be on the 2/9/DC circuits, and it’s getting harder and harder to get those immediately post-grad.

[Anonymous User]

Do any of the selective / feeder libs jump ahead of plan for the right school / grades, even if they fill most of their class on plan?

As far as I know, no feeder liberals admit to hiring off plan. But "window shopping" is common, and the very best sometimes get offers (direct or implied) before the plan opens. This goes how you'd expect: big name professor at HYS (usually Y) chats with old law school buddy Judge ABC about this rockstar research assistant; Judge ABC "gets coffee" with said research assistant and promises her/him an offer once the plan opens. I've never heard of a feeder liberal hiring off plan without a big name professor behind the scenes. I doubt sending a cold application would do anything.

If by "feeder liberal" you mean "feeder to liberals," that's a different story. Certain moderate and conservative feeders hire liberals off plan and have luck getting them Supreme Court clerkships.

The apparent importance of RAing, student orgs, etc. at Yale for clerkships is bizarre to me. I guess since they have tons of students with identical transcripts they have to compete somehow, but I think I'm happier just focusing on my grades.

Off-topic but for those who didn't notice, 2020 employment numbers just came out and Yale's clerkship numbers were down a bunch for the second year in a row. Wash U, Texas, and Vandy put up great numbers, better than many T14s.

This probably just indicates that judges are hiring farther and farther out. I assume Yale students want to be on the 2/9/DC circuits, and it’s getting harder and harder to get those immediately post-grad.

Nothing comparable has happened to any of its peer schools' numbers and of those only CA2 is known for hiring far in advance. Chicago and Stanford in particular put tons on CA9. I'm actually not really sure what to make of it, if it was an effect of Trump you'd expect a similar collapse to hit Harvard and Stanford.

[Anonymous User]

Do any of the selective / feeder libs jump ahead of plan for the right school / grades, even if they fill most of their class on plan?

As far as I know, no feeder liberals admit to hiring off plan. But "window shopping" is common, and the very best sometimes get offers (direct or implied) before the plan opens. This goes how you'd expect: big name professor at HYS (usually Y) chats with old law school buddy Judge ABC about this rockstar research assistant; Judge ABC "gets coffee" with said research assistant and promises her/him an offer once the plan opens. I've never heard of a feeder liberal hiring off plan without a big name professor behind the scenes. I doubt sending a cold application would do anything.

If by "feeder liberal" you mean "feeder to liberals," that's a different story. Certain moderate and conservative feeders hire liberals off plan and have luck getting them Supreme Court clerkships.

The apparent importance of RAing, student orgs, etc. at Yale for clerkships is bizarre to me. I guess since they have tons of students with identical transcripts they have to compete somehow, but I think I'm happier just focusing on my grades.

Off-topic but for those who didn't notice, 2020 employment numbers just came out and Yale's clerkship numbers were down a bunch for the second year in a row. Wash U, Texas, and Vandy put up great numbers, better than many T14s.

This probably just indicates that judges are hiring farther and farther out. I assume Yale students want to be on the 2/9/DC circuits, and it’s getting harder and harder to get those immediately post-grad.

Nothing comparable has happened to any of its peer schools' numbers and of those only CA2 is known for hiring far in advance. Chicago and Stanford in particular put tons on CA9. I'm actually not really sure what to make of it, if it was an effect of Trump you'd expect a similar collapse to hit Harvard and Stanford.

The collapse kind of did hit all of YSH, with the benefits going to C/V. The plan is clearly making it harder for those unwilling to clerk for conservatives/those who want to clerk in SF/LA/DC/NY (i.e. YSH) and much easier for geographically flexible conservatives (i.e. C/V). I think the clerkship numbers were like C (27%; +9%) > Y (25%; -6%) > S (23%; -5%) > V (17%; +3%) > H (15%; -5%) for 2020. Previously it was averaging something like Y(31%) > S (28%) > H (20%) > C (18%) > V (14%).

[Anonymous User]

You can see historical numbers vs. 2020 using the clerkship charts on this.

https://www.lstreports.com/compare/yale ... rd/chicago

HLS and SLS's numbers are a tad low but nothing unusual this year, Chicago has clearly benefited a lot from the Trump era like UVA, but YLS was usually like 34-35 vs. 25 this year and last year.

[Anonymous User]

You can see historical numbers vs. 2020 using the clerkship charts on this.

https://www.lstreports.com/compare/yale ... rd/chicago

HLS and SLS's numbers are a tad low but nothing unusual this year, Chicago has clearly benefited a lot from the Trump era like UVA, but YLS was usually like 34-35 vs. 25 this year and last year.

You're right about Harvard, I think I was overestimating their placement. However, I still think there was a big drop for SLS. The rolling average is 28% (29.1, 28.5, 26.4, 24.6, 26.2, 30.5, 29.4, and 28.2) and low is 24.6. 23.1 is a pretty significant drop and the worst in recent memory.

[Anonymous User]

You can see historical numbers vs. 2020 using the clerkship charts on this.

https://www.lstreports.com/compare/yale ... rd/chicago

HLS and SLS's numbers are a tad low but nothing unusual this year, Chicago has clearly benefited a lot from the Trump era like UVA, but YLS was usually like 34-35 vs. 25 this year and last year.

Anon b/c Yale student sharing Yale info. These numbers are pretty misleading because they seem to only include students clerking in the year immediately following graduation. Our clerkships office has told us that ~50% of YLS students do a federal clerkship at some point following graduation. So some of these apparent declines could represent shifts toward more people taking gap years before their clerkships.

[Anonymous User]

You can see historical numbers vs. 2020 using the clerkship charts on this.

https://www.lstreports.com/compare/yale ... rd/chicago

HLS and SLS's numbers are a tad low but nothing unusual this year, Chicago has clearly benefited a lot from the Trump era like UVA, but YLS was usually like 34-35 vs. 25 this year and last year.

Anon b/c Yale student sharing Yale info. These numbers are pretty misleading because they seem to only include students clerking in the year immediately following graduation. Our clerkships office has told us that ~50% of YLS students do a federal clerkship at some point following graduation. So some of these apparent declines could represent shifts toward more people taking gap years before their clerkships.

This is correct. Only about 60% of students in the class of 2020 with a federal clerkship are clerking straight out, and that percentage looks even lower so far in the class of 2021.

[Anonymous User]

You can see historical numbers vs. 2020 using the clerkship charts on this.

https://www.lstreports.com/compare/yale ... rd/chicago

HLS and SLS's numbers are a tad low but nothing unusual this year, Chicago has clearly benefited a lot from the Trump era like UVA, but YLS was usually like 34-35 vs. 25 this year and last year.

Anon b/c Yale student sharing Yale info. These numbers are pretty misleading because they seem to only include students clerking in the year immediately following graduation. Our clerkships office has told us that ~50% of YLS students do a federal clerkship at some point following graduation. So some of these apparent declines could represent shifts toward more people taking gap years before their clerkships.

This is correct. Only about 60% of students in the class of 2020 with a federal clerkship are clerking straight out, and that percentage looks even lower so far in the class of 2021.

Why would this problem affect Yale particularly badly, though? And why would it have changed in the last couple of years? Other schools' eventual clerkship rates are also much higher than their immediate clerkship rates.

[Anonymous User]

You can see historical numbers vs. 2020 using the clerkship charts on this.

https://www.lstreports.com/compare/yale ... rd/chicago

HLS and SLS's numbers are a tad low but nothing unusual this year, Chicago has clearly benefited a lot from the Trump era like UVA, but YLS was usually like 34-35 vs. 25 this year and last year.

Anon b/c Yale student sharing Yale info. These numbers are pretty misleading because they seem to only include students clerking in the year immediately following graduation. Our clerkships office has told us that ~50% of YLS students do a federal clerkship at some point following graduation. So some of these apparent declines could represent shifts toward more people taking gap years before their clerkships.

This is correct. Only about 60% of students in the class of 2020 with a federal clerkship are clerking straight out, and that percentage looks even lower so far in the class of 2021.

Why would this problem affect Yale particularly badly, though? And why would it have changed in the last couple of years? Other schools' eventual clerkship rates are also much higher than their immediate clerkship rates.

The changing composition of the federal judiciary under Trump, and a particularly left-leaning and elite-clerkship-focused student body that is targeting judges hiring farther out.

[Iowahawk]

I dunno, count me as skeptical that Yale students are such special snowflakes that they’re only applying to judges who hire well in the future while the schmucks at Harvard and Stanford settle. Also a good number of the very fanciest judges—Barron, Fletcher, Tatel, etc.—hire on the normal cycle. Both that story and the “Yale placement has collapsed” story seem implausible though so who knows. Though with YLS’s left-leaning student body I could definitely see the Trump era hurting its immediate placement and/or its placement in general.

If Yale placement is really being affected by that if I was a Yale student I’d be a bit less picky, though, in general it’s more inconvenient to have a gap year between graduating and clerking than to clerk in Pittsburgh instead of NY imo. Though obviously if you’re feeder material that outweighs all other considerations.

[Anonymous User]

I dunno, count me as skeptical that Yale students are such special snowflakes that they’re only applying to judges who hire well in the future while the schmucks at Harvard and Stanford settle. Also a good number of the very fanciest judges—Barron, Fletcher, Tatel, etc.—hire on the normal cycle. Both that story and the “Yale placement has collapsed” story seem implausible though so who knows. Though with YLS’s left-leaning student body I could definitely see the Trump era hurting its immediate placement and/or its placement in general.

If Yale placement is really being affected by that if I was a Yale student I’d be a bit less picky, though, in general it’s more inconvenient to have a gap year between graduating and clerking than to clerk in Pittsburgh instead of NY imo. Though obviously if you’re feeder material that outweighs all other considerations.

I think *most* of the liberal feeders actually hire on the normal cycle. I know that Watford wouldn't interview friends of mine for two years out, and Friedland reserves slots for the most recent classes. Pillard also doesn't hire that far out. Srinivasan doesn't either. Katzmann is the only one that comes to mind who has his crazy "clerk for me in 2029" thing. More generally, I think recently YLS has actually been trending lower than SLS in terms of federal clerkship placements; I don't think this is a Trump effect.

[Anonymous User]

I dunno, count me as skeptical that Yale students are such special snowflakes that they’re only applying to judges who hire well in the future while the schmucks at Harvard and Stanford settle. Also a good number of the very fanciest judges—Barron, Fletcher, Tatel, etc.—hire on the normal cycle. Both that story and the “Yale placement has collapsed” story seem implausible though so who knows. Though with YLS’s left-leaning student body I could definitely see the Trump era hurting its immediate placement and/or its placement in general.

If Yale placement is really being affected by that if I was a Yale student I’d be a bit less picky, though, in general it’s more inconvenient to have a gap year between graduating and clerking than to clerk in Pittsburgh instead of NY imo. Though obviously if you’re feeder material that outweighs all other considerations.

I think *most* of the liberal feeders actually hire on the normal cycle. I know that Watford wouldn't interview friends of mine for two years out, and Friedland reserves slots for the most recent classes. Pillard also doesn't hire that far out. Srinivasan doesn't either. Katzmann is the only one that comes to mind who has his crazy "clerk for me in 2029" thing. More generally, I think recently YLS has actually been trending lower than SLS in terms of federal clerkship placements; I don't think this is a Trump effect.

Agreed. A few years ago, certain liberal feeders were backlogged. Most have cleared that backlog by now, with a few notable exceptions on the Second Circuit. SLS has posted impressive clerkship numbers over the last 3-4 cycles, and I doubt that has to do with Trump. Chicago and UVA, on the other hand, certainly benefited from the new appointments. Maybe that cut into YLS's lead some.