Columbia's Clerkship Office is Awful Forum

[Anonymous User]

Sorry, I dunno how to answer these questions other than, "More black-letters is always better."

Like, if you do four black-letters across two semesters, get all A-range grades, and fill out with "real" seminars, a note, and the clinic, that looks pretty good.

If you do the same thing but get two B+s, an A-, and an A in the black-letters, it looks not-so-impressive. Then if some of the seminars are eye-roll-y, and your 1L year wasn't amazing...

Personally, I looked at two per semester as the minimum, and not the best strategy for maximizing clerkship opportunities.

Hopefully that's helpful.

It's so much more what you take than a rigid formula. Take Fed Courts and Admin and do well in both, and that's a great foundation for many judges. Legislation, conflicts, crim pro, advanced civ pro, and "serious" conlaw classes are all solid courses that look good on a clerkship resume. If you have a lot of classes like these, you can probably afford to take fewer overall BLL classes. Other BLL classes like T&E, tax, environmental law, international law, labor law, family law, etc. will all look much better than joke classes but won't jump off the page. There's also a big difference in how "real" and "fake" seminars will be perceived. A transcript heavy on "real" seminars, especially with profs who have written good LoR's for you, and with good grades in the core BLL classes, isn't going to be a problem for most judges.

As of next year, CLS is apparently no longer offering Admin Law.

They stopped offering it this year I think. Now if you want the full Admin experience, you take LegReg and then Advanced Admin

[Anonymous User]

As of next year, CLS is apparently no longer offering Admin Law.

They stopped offering it this year I think. Now if you want the full Admin experience, you take LegReg and then Advanced Admin

They are no longer offering Advanced Admin is what I meant.

[Anonymous User]

Is that actually confirmed by someone in the Administration or is it just not on the schedule at the moment for some reason? Not offering a proper Admin class at all (and LegReg is not that) seems wonky.

[Anonymous User]

Is that actually confirmed by someone in the Administration or is it just not on the schedule at the moment for some reason? Not offering a proper Admin class at all (and LegReg is not that) seems wonky.

From what I have heard (from people who talked to the admin), they are not offering Advanced Admin this year. I am sure this will stir complaints from the student body. It is kind of embarrassing that a school like CLS isn't offering a core law school class.

[Anonymous User]

The last time CLS tried to not offer Admin (before the LegReg switch), the students revolted and the school ended up getting Jerry Mashaw to teach it. If I were still a student, I'd start pushing for something like that right away.

[Anonymous User]

Double CLS clerk here (competitive/major market COA and SDNY/EDNY) who had no LR and unremarkable grades.

Really lean on your professors and professional connections. And former/current CLS clerks. This won’t work for everyone, but if I got emailed a resume that I thought my judge would like, I’d pass it on.

[Anonymous User]

Recent CLS grad here (with two clerkships). CLS might not have a great track record of placing students in clerkships, but you know what it does have? A well-established formula of how to get a clerkship:

1) Have good grades in real classes,

and

2) Get a recommendation from an influential and respected professor,

OR

3) Get involved in FedSoc.

If you don’t follow the formula, that’s your fault. Both 2 and 3 are worth addressing.


2) Earlier posts already identified some of the most influential professors, but there are many more. CLS has an incredibly deep bench of influential adjuncts, including former government officials, former AUSAs, big law partners, several sitting federal judges, etc. There are easily 15-20 professors at CLS who can help you get a clerkship if you're smart about it. If you want to clerk and you go three years without getting to know any of them, that’s on you.

3) As for FedSoc, they might be awful people, but a lot of them are also pretty damn smart. Do you think a FedSoc feeder judge would hire some jerk with a 3.5 GPA, merely because he’s on Columbia’s Fed Soc e-board? Doubtful. They earned those spots. Give credit where credit is due.


That leads me to the subject of this thread — that Columbia’s clerkship office is awful. Sure, they can be disorganized and rude. But it’s not their fault if you don't get a clerkship. The competition for these positions is as stiff as it gets. You can’t show up to OJC with mediocre grades and no valuable recommendations and expect Dean S to snap her fingers and get you an SDNY clerkship. Get real.

And a final word about Dean S. Columbia hired her to build a clerkship pipeline, which she's doing essentially from scratch. That’s going to take some time. She's working hard. She deserves a chance to do what she was hired to do, without disappointed students blaming her for their shortcomings.

[Anonymous User]

Recent CLS grad here (with two clerkships). CLS might not have a great track record of placing students in clerkships, but you know what it does have? A well-established formula of how to get a clerkship:

1) Have good grades in real classes,

and

2) Get a recommendation from an influential and respected professor,

OR

3) Get involved in FedSoc.

If you don’t follow the formula, that’s your fault. Both 2 and 3 are worth addressing.


2) Earlier posts already identified some of the most influential professors, but there are many more. CLS has an incredibly deep bench of influential adjuncts, including former government officials, former AUSAs, big law partners, several sitting federal judges, etc. There are easily 15-20 professors at CLS who can help you get a clerkship if you're smart about it. If you want to clerk and you go three years without getting to know any of them, that’s on you.

3) As for FedSoc, they might be awful people, but a lot of them are also pretty damn smart. Do you think a FedSoc feeder judge would hire some jerk with a 3.5 GPA, merely because he’s on Columbia’s Fed Soc e-board? Doubtful. They earned those spots. Give credit where credit is due.


That leads me to the subject of this thread — that Columbia’s clerkship office is awful. Sure, they can be disorganized and rude. But it’s not their fault if you don't get a clerkship. The competition for these positions is as stiff as it gets. You can’t show up to OJC with mediocre grades and no valuable recommendations and expect Dean S to snap her fingers and get you an SDNY clerkship. Get real.

And a final word about Dean S. Columbia hired her to build a clerkship pipeline, which she's doing essentially from scratch. That’s going to take some time. She's working hard. She deserves a chance to do what she was hired to do, without disappointed students blaming her for their shortcomings.

You really felt the need to post this, huh?

[Anonymous User]

I can say that at Chicago, if you show up with decent grades and no valuable recommendations/connections, you'll probably get a clerkship. If you come in with good grades and valuable recommendations/connections, you'll probably get a very good clerkship. There is a lot that a competent clerkship office can do to grease the wheels even if you aren't a perfect applicant. When I applied I had good grades but didn't really know my profs and the clerkship office (and the profs who turned out to be willing to go to bat for me) helped me a lot with that.

I think Columbia's numbers mostly speak for themselves that they're doing a bad job--and a lot of the posts on here seem to bear that out.

[Anonymous User]

Recent CLS grad here (with two clerkships) [...]

And a final word about Dean S. Columbia hired her to build a clerkship pipeline, which she's doing essentially from scratch. That’s going to take some time. She's working hard. She deserves a chance to do what she was hired to do, without disappointed students blaming her for their shortcomings.

You really felt the need to post this, huh?

Did Dean Saavedra write this? This is way too generous to Dean S. She gives out bad advice. Sure, she may eventually succeed. But it's not premature to judge her based on the numerous pieces of terrible advice other students have told me about.

[nixy]

What kinds of bad advice? (just curious.)

[stoopkid13]

Recent CLS grad here (with two clerkships) [...]

And a final word about Dean S. Columbia hired her to build a clerkship pipeline, which she's doing essentially from scratch. That’s going to take some time. She's working hard. She deserves a chance to do what she was hired to do, without disappointed students blaming her for their shortcomings.

You really felt the need to post this, huh?

Did Dean Saavedra write this? This is way too generous to Dean S. She gives out bad advice. Sure, she may eventually succeed. But it's not premature to judge her based on the numerous pieces of terrible advice other students have told me about.

Not the above anon, but I generally agree that the criticism of Dean S. is misplaced. Maybe she is giving bad advice; I just I haven't seen it. To take the most recent example in this thread, I don't think it's "terrible advice" to take 4 BLLs your 2L year (and several others seem to agree). It seems the real issues are the usual suspects--the faculty are less proactive/supportive than at other schools, and the students are less geographically flexible than at other schools. And to paraphrase another poster, the numbers mostly speak for themselves that Dean S. is an improvement upon her predecessor (which perhaps speaks to the dumpster fire she inherited).

And I still find it comical that what makes the clerkship office "awful" is that students have to make their own mail-merge files when they want to send out new applications. The horror!

[Anonymous User]

If there are any rising 3Ls with clerkships or alums that can see the class list for Fall and Spring, what would you all suggest taking this semester? Most of the classes listed before aren't offered anymore or have entirely different professors.

[Anonymous User]

If there are any rising 3Ls with clerkships or alums that can see the class list for Fall and Spring, what would you all suggest taking this semester? Most of the classes listed before aren't offered anymore or have entirely different professors.

Alum who clerked. Based on a very quick scan of the course list, some good ones for preparing to clerk, in no particular order, would be:

• Criminal Adjudication with Shechtman

• Criminal Investigations with Livingston

• Evidence with anyone

• Fed Courts with anyone

• Sec Reg with anyone but Coffee

• Fed Crim Law with Richman

• Sentencing with Richman & Sullivan

• Appellate Advocacy with Lynch & Livingston

• (Maybe) Bankruptcy with anyone

The list would be fairly similar if you were trying to put together a good course list to get a clerkship, except then you should definitely not take all of these. In that case, Fed Courts and Evidence are mandatory, and I'd otherwise try to do a balance of classes on this list with somewhat less gunnery "real" classes like Labor Law or Fed Income Tax.

[Anonymous User]

Why not take Securities Regulation with Coffee? Is he not influential and respected? Or is the teaching not good?

[Anonymous User]

Why not take Securities Regulation with Coffee? Is he not influential and respected? Or is the teaching not good?

I hesitate to use the term "teaching" to describe what happens in Coffee's classes. I cannot speak to his influence/respectability.

[Anonymous User]

Why not take Securities Regulation with Coffee? Is he not influential and respected? Or is the teaching not good?

I hesitate to use the term "teaching" to describe what happens in Coffee's classes. I cannot speak to his influence/respectability.

Coffee is very respected, but he is an awful professor.

[Anonymous User]

Why not take Securities Regulation with Coffee? Is he not influential and respected? Or is the teaching not good?

I hesitate to use the term "teaching" to describe what happens in Coffee's classes. I cannot speak to his influence/respectability.

Coffee is very respected, but he is an awful professor.

Yeah, Coffee is probably the most well-respected professor on faculty after Merrill, but his classes are nightmares.

[Anonymous User]

Why not take Securities Regulation with Coffee? Is he not influential and respected? Or is the teaching not good?

I hesitate to use the term "teaching" to describe what happens in Coffee's classes. I cannot speak to his influence/respectability.

Coffee is very respected, but he is an awful professor.

Yeah, Coffee is probably the most well-respected professor on faculty after Merrill, but his classes are nightmares.

Out of curiosity then, how do people develop relationships with him? Research?

[Anonymous User]

If there are any rising 3Ls with clerkships or alums that can see the class list for Fall and Spring, what would you all suggest taking this semester? Most of the classes listed before aren't offered anymore or have entirely different professors.

Alum who clerked. Based on a very quick scan of the course list, some good ones for preparing to clerk, in no particular order, would be:

• Criminal Adjudication with Shechtman

• Criminal Investigations with Livingston

• Evidence with anyone

• Fed Courts with anyone

• Sec Reg with anyone but Coffee

• Fed Crim Law with Richman

• Sentencing with Richman & Sullivan

• Appellate Advocacy with Lynch & Livingston

• (Maybe) Bankruptcy with anyone

The list would be fairly similar if you were trying to put together a good course list to get a clerkship, except then you should definitely not take all of these. In that case, Fed Courts and Evidence are mandatory, and I'd otherwise try to do a balance of classes on this list with somewhat less gunnery "real" classes like Labor Law or Fed Income Tax.

I'm surprised Monaghan's name hasn't come up. Isn't he quite a big deal?

[Anonymous User]

If there are any rising 3Ls with clerkships or alums that can see the class list for Fall and Spring, what would you all suggest taking this semester? Most of the classes listed before aren't offered anymore or have entirely different professors.

Alum who clerked. Based on a very quick scan of the course list, some good ones for preparing to clerk, in no particular order, would be:

• Criminal Adjudication with Shechtman

• Criminal Investigations with Livingston

• Evidence with anyone

• Fed Courts with anyone

• Sec Reg with anyone but Coffee

• Fed Crim Law with Richman

• Sentencing with Richman & Sullivan

• Appellate Advocacy with Lynch & Livingston

• (Maybe) Bankruptcy with anyone

The list would be fairly similar if you were trying to put together a good course list to get a clerkship, except then you should definitely not take all of these. In that case, Fed Courts and Evidence are mandatory, and I'd otherwise try to do a balance of classes on this list with somewhat less gunnery "real" classes like Labor Law or Fed Income Tax.

I'm surprised Monaghan's name hasn't come up. Isn't he quite a big deal?

He's in his 80s and has lost quite a few steps, although his body of work is obviously very influential.

[Anonymous User]

Why not take Securities Regulation with Coffee? Is he not influential and respected? Or is the teaching not good?

I hesitate to use the term "teaching" to describe what happens in Coffee's classes. I cannot speak to his influence/respectability.

Coffee is very respected, but he is an awful professor.

Yeah, Coffee is probably the most well-respected professor on faculty after Merrill, but his classes are nightmares.

Out of curiosity then, how do people develop relationships with him? Research?

Having never seen a recommendation from Coffee in the many CLS applications I reviewed when clerking, my guess is "they don't."

[Anonymous User]

Why not take Securities Regulation with Coffee? Is he not influential and respected? Or is the teaching not good?

I hesitate to use the term "teaching" to describe what happens in Coffee's classes. I cannot speak to his influence/respectability.

Coffee is very respected, but he is an awful professor.

Yeah, Coffee is probably the most well-respected professor on faculty after Merrill, but his classes are nightmares.

Out of curiosity then, how do people develop relationships with him? Research?

Having never seen a recommendation from Coffee in the many CLS applications I reviewed when clerking, my guess is "they don't."

Any chance you'd be willing to say which professors you've seen write the best recs? I'm curious if there are any big-name professors that constantly phone in their recommendations

[Anonymous User]

Any chance you'd be willing to say which professors you've seen write the best recs? I'm curious if there are any big-name professors that constantly phone in their recommendations

From another thread:

Elite recommenders (will pick up phone AND are taken seriously): Metzger, Merrill, Richman, Waxman, Strauss, Greene, Lynch, Huang, Pozens (both). Tend to be harder to get.
Good recommenders (will pick up the phone): all the younger people (i.e. Glass, Funk, etc), Schechtman, Briffault, Mann, Gordon, Graetz,

[Anonymous User]

Any chance you'd be willing to say which professors you've seen write the best recs? I'm curious if there are any big-name professors that constantly phone in their recommendations

From another thread:

Elite recommenders (will pick up phone AND are taken seriously): Metzger, Merrill, Richman, Waxman, Strauss, Greene, Lynch, Huang, Pozens (both). Tend to be harder to get.
Good recommenders (will pick up the phone): all the younger people (i.e. Glass, Funk, etc), Schechtman, Briffault, Mann, Gordon, Graetz,

That's about right. Greene was probably the best overall. Metzger and Waxman were hit and miss (some were very strong, others clearly phoned in).