Columbia's Clerkship Office is Awful Forum

[Anonymous User]

accidental double post

[Anonymous User]

accidental triple post

[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).

Of course Greene would cancel all this classes this year.

[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).

I can't speak to most of these, but agree on Greene, Huang, and JBP. Surprised Merrill picks up the phone for anyone. Would also add Emens as a "good recommender."

[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).

I can't speak to most of these, but agree on Greene, Huang, and JBP. Surprised Merrill picks up the phone for anyone. Would also add Emens as a "good recommender."

CLS alum here, who has Greene as a rec writer. Did anyone who asked him for a letter find it difficult to get in touch with him? He seems like a great resource from what people in this thread are saying, but I want to make sure that his silence as I'm applying doesn't mean anything. Any thoughts on approaching him with a list, or just generally?

[Anonymous User]

Greene is notorious for not replying to emails about anything, to the point where I've had a high level admin person directly comment on it to me. Do not take the silence as a negative, especially if he already agreed; but you should just plan on "checking in" more than once. Once he's actually engaged, he's great.

[Anonymous User]

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.

I guess the experiences with her can vary wildly. Bad/annoying stuff/advice I experienced or heard from others:

- Completely ignoring emails seeking advice on multiple separate occasions.
- Giving bizarre strategic advice (e.g., like suggesting ALJs to COA quality candidates as mentioned up thread)
- Taking down/Hiding the clerkship handbook. It wasn't an amazing document, but it was a single, centralized, constantly updated document that a newbie could read and get all the basic info and context they needed about whole process. One day it was just gone; they have been slowly releasing parts of it into random folders on courseworks for the past 2 years and calling them "new."
- Deciding that OJC was not going to help with paper apps when other means were available (used to be standard).
- Inability to provide any information for whole circuits.
- Inability to provide post-clerkship hiring advice.

All that said, CLS's actual clerkship results are fine. Like 15% of the class of '21 is has a Federal clerkship(s) already lined up (though many for 2022 and on) and a good number more will get theirs after Big Lawing it up for a couple years. Is that Chicago or Harvard? No, but... it's fine. It's not the disaster that that "graduating into a Clerkship" number is going to make it out to be. Dean S. probably deserves some credit there (though our numbers have never really been as bad as people say).

[Anonymous User]

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.

I guess the experiences with her can vary wildly. Bad/annoying stuff/advice I experienced or heard from others:

- Completely ignoring emails seeking advice on multiple separate occasions.
- Giving bizarre strategic advice (e.g., like suggesting ALJs to COA quality candidates as mentioned up thread)
- Taking down/Hiding the clerkship handbook. It wasn't an amazing document, but it was a single, centralized, constantly updated document that a newbie could read and get all the basic info and context they needed about whole process. One day it was just gone; they have been slowly releasing parts of it into random folders on courseworks for the past 2 years and calling them "new."
- Deciding that OJC was not going to help with paper apps when other means were available (used to be standard).
- Inability to provide any information for whole circuits.
- Inability to provide post-clerkship hiring advice.

All that said, CLS's actual clerkship results are fine. Like 15% of the class of '21 is has a Federal clerkship(s) already lined up (though many for 2022 and on) and a good number more will get theirs after Big Lawing it up for a couple years. Is that Chicago or Harvard? No, but... it's fine. It's not the disaster that that "graduating into a Clerkship" number is going to make it out to be. Dean S. probably deserves some credit there (though our numbers have never really been as bad as people say).

I believe the number is closer to 10% (apologies for being nitpicky). The clerkship office likes to refer to the total number of clerkships students have, not the number of students who have clerkships. That way they get to double count the students who have two clerkships.

That being said, I still believe the biggest reason CLS lags behind in the clerkship rankings is self-selection by students. So many students settle into NYC and decide that they will only apply to clerkships in NYC or nearby. Nothing wrong with this, moving across the country for a job that pays 1/3 of BigLaw isn't appealing to a lot of people who have settled into city life. However, more students at a school like UChicago are willing to consider a clerkship outside the area they plan to practice. Other factors such as professor connections (especially for SCOTUS) and the clerkship office's lack of direction contribute, but I still think it is primarily a self-selection issue.

[Anonymous User]

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.

I guess the experiences with her can vary wildly. Bad/annoying stuff/advice I experienced or heard from others:

- Completely ignoring emails seeking advice on multiple separate occasions.
- Giving bizarre strategic advice (e.g., like suggesting ALJs to COA quality candidates as mentioned up thread)
- Taking down/Hiding the clerkship handbook. It wasn't an amazing document, but it was a single, centralized, constantly updated document that a newbie could read and get all the basic info and context they needed about whole process. One day it was just gone; they have been slowly releasing parts of it into random folders on courseworks for the past 2 years and calling them "new."
- Deciding that OJC was not going to help with paper apps when other means were available (used to be standard).
- Inability to provide any information for whole circuits.
- Inability to provide post-clerkship hiring advice.

All that said, CLS's actual clerkship results are fine. Like 15% of the class of '21 is has a Federal clerkship(s) already lined up (though many for 2022 and on) and a good number more will get theirs after Big Lawing it up for a couple years. Is that Chicago or Harvard? No, but... it's fine. It's not the disaster that that "graduating into a Clerkship" number is going to make it out to be. Dean S. probably deserves some credit there (though our numbers have never really been as bad as people say).

I've had pretty good experiences with Dean S, and she is significantly better than what Columbia had before. If you come to her with recommenders in mind, some research done about which Circuit/Districts and why, and aren't delusional, she's a pretty good sounding board about judges and application strategy. From what I've experienced, she will help push you to certain judges that she knows.

The main issues with the office are the lack of transparency surrounding anything related to clerkships - everything is guarded for no reason, like the clerkship handbook. The alumni database is also out of date, and people applying on Plan would be less frustrated if the office just told them which judges were moving, had moved, and who they should switch focus to.

But the school doesn't make clerkships a priority -- although I agree it is not as bad as people think. There is a distinct lack of "clerkship" classes -- as evidenced by the fact the school has tried killing Admin law twice now. Professors, as shown above, aren't interested in pushing their students to clerkships. And if the school wanted to try emulating Chicago/UVA's success, they'd expand the number of conservative professors on campus beyond Hamburger and Merrill. There is some self-selection bias in Columbia's low clerking numbers, but more active professors encouraging students to clerk, having any connections to 50% of the judiciary, and being pro-active about calling their friends, would help.

The office doesn't want to process paper apps unless absolutely necessary because there are only 2 assistants working in OJC, and I can understand why they don't have the bandwidth to print 100 paper applications per candidate in the rush before the plan.

[Anonymous User]

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.

I guess the experiences with her can vary wildly. Bad/annoying stuff/advice I experienced or heard from others:

- Completely ignoring emails seeking advice on multiple separate occasions.
- Giving bizarre strategic advice (e.g., like suggesting ALJs to COA quality candidates as mentioned up thread)
- Taking down/Hiding the clerkship handbook. It wasn't an amazing document, but it was a single, centralized, constantly updated document that a newbie could read and get all the basic info and context they needed about whole process. One day it was just gone; they have been slowly releasing parts of it into random folders on courseworks for the past 2 years and calling them "new."
- Deciding that OJC was not going to help with paper apps when other means were available (used to be standard).
- Inability to provide any information for whole circuits.
- Inability to provide post-clerkship hiring advice.

All that said, CLS's actual clerkship results are fine. Like 15% of the class of '21 is has a Federal clerkship(s) already lined up (though many for 2022 and on) and a good number more will get theirs after Big Lawing it up for a couple years. Is that Chicago or Harvard? No, but... it's fine. It's not the disaster that that "graduating into a Clerkship" number is going to make it out to be. Dean S. probably deserves some credit there (though our numbers have never really been as bad as people say).

I believe the number is closer to 10% (apologies for being nitpicky). The clerkship office likes to refer to the total number of clerkships students have, not the number of students who have clerkships. That way they get to double count the students who have two clerkships.

It's gotta be over 10%. I got 15% from eyeballing the number of individual students listed on courseworks, not looking at clerkships or published numbers. Looks like ~60-65 students out of ~425 (maybe I'm way off on our class size? Each section was 100 and change +/- transfers). If you were counting the double ups and including the SSCs you are looking at like 85-90 clerkships total.

[Anonymous User]

Judges Livingston and Sullivan teach at Columbia and might be useful for the Fed Soc side as well. You don't necessarily need to be full faculty, two of Chicago's most powerful conservative recommenders are part-timers Richard Epstein and Adam Mortara. I'm not sure how the ban on off-plan recs, which is a huge self-inflicted barrier, fits with them though. Columbia does put some students with conservative judges so there must be a way to evade it.

If you're a CLS student who wants to clerk though one of its major problems is luckily one within your control: get over your geographic hangups and apply beyond New York like every other school's students.

[Anonymous User]

Judges Livingston and Sullivan teach at Columbia and might be useful for the Fed Soc side as well. You don't necessarily need to be full faculty, two of Chicago's most powerful conservative recommenders are part-timers Richard Epstein and Adam Mortara. I'm not sure how the ban on off-plan recs, which is a huge self-inflicted barrier, fits with them though. Columbia does put some students with conservative judges so there must be a way to evade it.

If you're a CLS student who wants to clerk though one of its major problems is luckily one within your control: get over your geographic hangups and apply beyond New York like every other school's students.

The Judges tend not to be too helpful. I can’t speak for Sullivan because I never got into his classes, but anyone Livingston is impressed with she tries to hire. Neither is particularly ideological.

I was under the impression one reason UChicago and UVA place well is because professors will push willing liberal students to conservative judges they know. CLS faculty may try doing the same, but they all know the same judges on the 2nd Circuit and most are not connected at all with 50% of the judiciary.

[Anonymous User]

Judges Livingston and Sullivan teach at Columbia and might be useful for the Fed Soc side as well. You don't necessarily need to be full faculty, two of Chicago's most powerful conservative recommenders are part-timers Richard Epstein and Adam Mortara. I'm not sure how the ban on off-plan recs, which is a huge self-inflicted barrier, fits with them though. Columbia does put some students with conservative judges so there must be a way to evade it.

If you're a CLS student who wants to clerk though one of its major problems is luckily one within your control: get over your geographic hangups and apply beyond New York like every other school's students.

I agree that geographic inflexibility is a significant impediment, but it seems like CLS has a surplus of sufficiently competitive clerkship applicants who are geographically flexible. I agree with others that the biggest issue by far seems to be lack of professor connections and enthusiasm. Chances are the vast majority of the students clerking for conservative judges had to primarily rely on the advice & networking opportunities of CLS FedSoc (given the limited networks of CLS professors).

[Anonymous User]

Judges Livingston and Sullivan teach at Columbia and might be useful for the Fed Soc side as well. You don't necessarily need to be full faculty, two of Chicago's most powerful conservative recommenders are part-timers Richard Epstein and Adam Mortara. I'm not sure how the ban on off-plan recs, which is a huge self-inflicted barrier, fits with them though. Columbia does put some students with conservative judges so there must be a way to evade it.

If you're a CLS student who wants to clerk though one of its major problems is luckily one within your control: get over your geographic hangups and apply beyond New York like every other school's students.

+1 on the part time profs. I know people who got stellar clerkships thanks to connections with well-respected visiting professors, so don’t write them or adjuncts off.

On a different note, I’m consistently impressed with the number of CLS clerks in SDNY/EDNY and even CA2. I think we do really really well in those areas, but a lot of people clerk several years out and the Clerkship Office doesn’t update the alumni directory regularly enough.

Part of me thinks this whole post kind of has this belief that getting a clerkship is easy at most T14 schools. I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s easy for a small number of students, but most have to work hard and it takes a while.

[Anonymous User]

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.

I guess the experiences with her can vary wildly. Bad/annoying stuff/advice I experienced or heard from others:

- Completely ignoring emails seeking advice on multiple separate occasions.
- Giving bizarre strategic advice (e.g., like suggesting ALJs to COA quality candidates as mentioned up thread)
- Taking down/Hiding the clerkship handbook. It wasn't an amazing document, but it was a single, centralized, constantly updated document that a newbie could read and get all the basic info and context they needed about whole process. One day it was just gone; they have been slowly releasing parts of it into random folders on courseworks for the past 2 years and calling them "new."
- Deciding that OJC was not going to help with paper apps when other means were available (used to be standard).
- Inability to provide any information for whole circuits.
- Inability to provide post-clerkship hiring advice.

All that said, CLS's actual clerkship results are fine. Like 15% of the class of '21 is has a Federal clerkship(s) already lined up (though many for 2022 and on) and a good number more will get theirs after Big Lawing it up for a couple years. Is that Chicago or Harvard? No, but... it's fine. It's not the disaster that that "graduating into a Clerkship" number is going to make it out to be. Dean S. probably deserves some credit there (though our numbers have never really been as bad as people say).

I believe the number is closer to 10% (apologies for being nitpicky). The clerkship office likes to refer to the total number of clerkships students have, not the number of students who have clerkships. That way they get to double count the students who have two clerkships.

It's gotta be over 10%. I got 15% from eyeballing the number of individual students listed on courseworks, not looking at clerkships or published numbers. Looks like ~60-65 students out of ~425 (maybe I'm way off on our class size? Each section was 100 and change +/- transfers). If you were counting the double ups and including the SSCs you are looking at like 85-90 clerkships total.

I wasn't looking at courseworks, I was looking at the list they accidently leaked with all the students who are clerking on it. On the list that leaked 45 students had federal clerkships. I will go check courseworks though.

[Anonymous User]

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.

I guess the experiences with her can vary wildly. Bad/annoying stuff/advice I experienced or heard from others:

- Completely ignoring emails seeking advice on multiple separate occasions.
- Giving bizarre strategic advice (e.g., like suggesting ALJs to COA quality candidates as mentioned up thread)
- Taking down/Hiding the clerkship handbook. It wasn't an amazing document, but it was a single, centralized, constantly updated document that a newbie could read and get all the basic info and context they needed about whole process. One day it was just gone; they have been slowly releasing parts of it into random folders on courseworks for the past 2 years and calling them "new."
- Deciding that OJC was not going to help with paper apps when other means were available (used to be standard).
- Inability to provide any information for whole circuits.
- Inability to provide post-clerkship hiring advice.

All that said, CLS's actual clerkship results are fine. Like 15% of the class of '21 is has a Federal clerkship(s) already lined up (though many for 2022 and on) and a good number more will get theirs after Big Lawing it up for a couple years. Is that Chicago or Harvard? No, but... it's fine. It's not the disaster that that "graduating into a Clerkship" number is going to make it out to be. Dean S. probably deserves some credit there (though our numbers have never really been as bad as people say).

I believe the number is closer to 10% (apologies for being nitpicky). The clerkship office likes to refer to the total number of clerkships students have, not the number of students who have clerkships. That way they get to double count the students who have two clerkships.

It's gotta be over 10%. I got 15% from eyeballing the number of individual students listed on courseworks, not looking at clerkships or published numbers. Looks like ~60-65 students out of ~425 (maybe I'm way off on our class size? Each section was 100 and change +/- transfers). If you were counting the double ups and including the SSCs you are looking at like 85-90 clerkships total.

I wasn't looking at courseworks, I was looking at the list they accidently leaked with all the students who are clerking on it. On the list that leaked 45 students had federal clerkships. I will go check courseworks though.

They accidentally leaked a list?

[Anonymous User]

They accidentally leaked a list?

The booklet they provide to professors listing all of the #ColumbiaClerks was posted to the courseworks for about a day before it was removed.

[Anonymous User]

They accidentally leaked a list?

The booklet they provide to professors listing all of the #ColumbiaClerks was posted to the courseworks for about a day before it was removed.

Why is this a secret/leak? UVA publishes its list of students clerking online and in the alumni magazine every year. Anyone can access it.

[Anonymous User]

They accidentally leaked a list?

The booklet they provide to professors listing all of the #ColumbiaClerks was posted to the courseworks for about a day before it was removed.

Why is this a secret/leak? UVA publishes its list of students clerking online and in the alumni magazine every year. Anyone can access it.

Because all Columbia clerkship information is CONFIDENTIAL: DO NOT SHARE OUTSIDE OF CLS.

[Anonymous User]

They accidentally leaked a list?

The booklet they provide to professors listing all of the #ColumbiaClerks was posted to the courseworks for about a day before it was removed.

Whether an "accidental leak" or not, I'm pretty sure the #ColumbiaClerks booklet is still on Courseworks.

[Anonymous User]

They accidentally leaked a list?

The booklet they provide to professors listing all of the #ColumbiaClerks was posted to the courseworks for about a day before it was removed.

Whether an "accidental leak" or not, I'm pretty sure the #ColumbiaClerks booklet is still on Courseworks.

Ah, they re-added it last week. There are now 60 students with federal clerkships (and 10 others with assorted ones)

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Appreciate the discussion and agree with a lot of the points. What I would say to people commending Saavedra for getting the basic things done or making excuses for the school not hiring another few people to process paper apps or figuring out a better system to maximize chances of getting clerkships is that tuition is near the highest in the entire country, did not drop a penny during a pandemic when noone was on campus, and is definitely out of line with the services provided. They should be pressured to do more for our money.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Appreciate the discussion and agree with a lot of the points. What I would say to people commending Saavedra for getting the basic things done or making excuses for the school not hiring another few people to process paper apps or figuring out a better system to maximize chances of getting clerkships is that tuition is near the highest in the entire country, did not drop a penny during a pandemic when noone was on campus, and is definitely out of line with the services provided. They should be pressured to do more for our money.

CLS clerk here. The point we're is making is that the clerkship office itself does quite a bit for your money if you apply on Plan. There is a clear process, laid out neatly on both the website and the courseworks, about how to submit your applications for processing. Asking them to hire more people to process paper apps for 1 month a year is an odd ask if you are concerned about the COA. It's been established they do more than Yale does, where students have to mail out all of their applications themselves. I'm not really sure what more they could do logistically, other than not make mistakes when sending out the applications (which has happened).

I'm not saying this as a defender of the CLS clerkship office: they can definitely be more transparent and get faculty more involved with pushing students to judges. And if they abandoned their fealty to the Plan and were honest about the judges that hired off-Plan, more students would be hired. But your concerns aren't a major issue or would truly help CLS improve its decent numbers.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Appreciate the discussion and agree with a lot of the points. What I would say to people commending Saavedra for getting the basic things done or making excuses for the school not hiring another few people to process paper apps or figuring out a better system to maximize chances of getting clerkships is that tuition is near the highest in the entire country, did not drop a penny during a pandemic when noone was on campus, and is definitely out of line with the services provided. They should be pressured to do more for our money.

CLS clerk here. The point we're is making is that the clerkship office itself does quite a bit for your money if you apply on Plan. There is a clear process, laid out neatly on both the website and the courseworks, about how to submit your applications for processing. Asking them to hire more people to process paper apps for 1 month a year is an odd ask if you are concerned about the COA. It's been established they do more than Yale does, where students have to mail out all of their applications themselves. I'm not really sure what more they could do logistically, other than not make mistakes when sending out the applications (which has happened).

I'm not saying this as a defender of the CLS clerkship office: they can definitely be more transparent and get faculty more involved with pushing students to judges. And if they abandoned their fealty to the Plan and were honest about the judges that hired off-Plan, more students would be hired. But your concerns aren't a major issue or would truly help CLS improve its decent numbers.

Sorry, what do they do for our money? I'm genuinely curious because it seems like they could do a lot more and I'm not even sure what they do now besides sometimes process paper apps. Even if it's not OJC, the school should encourage professors to get more involved like Chicago does because for $77,000 tuition, a lot of litigation focused students seem to be getting the short end of the stick.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Appreciate the discussion and agree with a lot of the points. What I would say to people commending Saavedra for getting the basic things done or making excuses for the school not hiring another few people to process paper apps or figuring out a better system to maximize chances of getting clerkships is that tuition is near the highest in the entire country, did not drop a penny during a pandemic when noone was on campus, and is definitely out of line with the services provided. They should be pressured to do more for our money.

CLS clerk here. The point we're is making is that the clerkship office itself does quite a bit for your money if you apply on Plan. There is a clear process, laid out neatly on both the website and the courseworks, about how to submit your applications for processing. Asking them to hire more people to process paper apps for 1 month a year is an odd ask if you are concerned about the COA. It's been established they do more than Yale does, where students have to mail out all of their applications themselves. I'm not really sure what more they could do logistically, other than not make mistakes when sending out the applications (which has happened).

I'm not saying this as a defender of the CLS clerkship office: they can definitely be more transparent and get faculty more involved with pushing students to judges. And if they abandoned their fealty to the Plan and were honest about the judges that hired off-Plan, more students would be hired. But your concerns aren't a major issue or would truly help CLS improve its decent numbers.

Sorry, what do they do for our money? I'm genuinely curious because it seems like they could do a lot more and I'm not even sure what they do now besides sometimes process paper apps. Even if it's not OJC, the school should encourage professors to get more involved like Chicago does because for $77,000 tuition, a lot of litigation focused students seem to be getting the short end of the stick.

They provide logistical support and advice, which isn't that different from most other schools. Chicago has more professors involved in the process because Chicago has professors that care more about clerkships, has far more ideological diversity amongst the faculty so the professors know more judges, and the office openly ignores the Plan.

If you are a top student at CLS, plenty of professors will call for the 2nd Circuit/SDNY/EDNY judges that they know. But they can't all call the same judges to pitch 30 different students.