Perceived Prestige of Senior Judge Forum

[Anonymous User]

What is the perceived prestige of senior judges? Would it affect getting a clerkship bonus? (V30)

[soft blue]

1.) Yes, you'll get a clerkship bonus.
2.) I don't think seniority impacts prestige at all, at least among people who know. Sophisticated parties can look past court/title to see the judge's actual quality (consider Pryor on 11, Rosenthal on SDTX - neither on "prestige" courts, but far more "prestigious" clerkships than e.g. Cote on SDNY or Pooler on CA2).

[j01]

Honestly, if I saw someone clerked for a senior judge, I'd think they were clever for getting the same credential but dealing with a lighter workload. And you don't need to put "Senior Judge" on your resume, so most people won't know the difference anyway.

[Anonymous User]

Related point to soft blue's is that it doesn't make sense to talk about "prestige of senior judges" monolithically. There is a big difference between clerking for a recently senior judge who is still carrying close to a full workload vs. one close to retirement or on a significantly reduced load. On CA9, at least, there is a big range between the more and less active senior judges, as well as their selectivity and name recognition. Some judges (e.g. Wallace) will elicit a "huh, didn't know they were still alive / hearing cases / taking clerks." Others will elicit a "huh, didn't know they went senior" (e.g. Clifton, Bybee). Still others are going senior but not listed as such yet because their senior status is conditional on confirmation of a successor (e.g. Paez, Fletcher). And the Fletchers and Paez's of the world remain heavy hitters while the Wallaces of the world may be surprisingly active but are still sidelined, relatively speaking, to most active judges.

I have never heard of clerkship bonuses being dependent on senior status or not. The real reason I would be hesitant to clerk for some senior judges, especially the less active ones, is concern about getting the same training and mentorship given the lighter case load, health problems in some cases, etc. Also, on CA9 at least, senior judges generally do not participate in en banc proceedings (there are exceptions, like if they sat on the original panel), and IMO participating in the en banc behind-the-scenes is one of the coolest parts of clerking on some federal appellate courts. But YMMV and there are probably a number of less active senior judges who are nevertheless wonderful mentors.

[soft blue]

Related point to soft blue's is that it doesn't make sense to talk about "prestige of senior judges" monolithically. There is a big difference between clerking for a recently senior judge who is still carrying close to a full workload vs. one close to retirement or on a significantly reduced load. On CA9, at least, there is a big range between the more and less active senior judges, as well as their selectivity and name recognition. Some judges (e.g. Wallace) will elicit a "huh, didn't know they were still alive / hearing cases / taking clerks." Others will elicit a "huh, didn't know they went senior" (e.g. Clifton, Bybee). Still others are going senior but not listed as such yet because their senior status is conditional on confirmation of a successor (e.g. Paez, Fletcher). And the Fletchers and Paez's of the world remain heavy hitters while the Wallaces of the world may be surprisingly active but are still sidelined, relatively speaking, to most active judges.

I have never heard of clerkship bonuses being dependent on senior status or not. The real reason I would be hesitant to clerk for some senior judges, especially the less active ones, is concern about getting the same training and mentorship given the lighter case load, health problems in some cases, etc. Also, on CA9 at least, senior judges generally do not participate in en banc proceedings (there are exceptions, like if they sat on the original panel), and IMO participating in the en banc behind-the-scenes is one of the coolest parts of clerking on some federal appellate courts. But YMMV and there are probably a number of less active senior judges who are nevertheless wonderful mentors.

I'm not sure the lighter caseload is a wholly bad thing. IMO most senior judges start by avoiding cases that are known to be unpleasant slogs (ERISA, AEDPA, etc) and eventually whittle down to only the things they're really interested in. The former is pretty pleasant, by all accounts, but the latter might be worrisome.

Again, judge-by-judge. If your judge has a history of caring about mentorship, etc, they'll likely keep doing it while senior (unless there are health issues). Anon is totally right, look at the actual judge, not their senior status.

[cheaptilts]

1.) Yes, you'll get a clerkship bonus.
2.) I don't think seniority impacts prestige at all, at least among people who know. Sophisticated parties can look past court/title to see the judge's actual quality (consider Pryor on 11, Rosenthal on SDTX - neither on "prestige" courts, but far more "prestigious" clerkships than e.g. Cote on SDNY or Pooler on CA2).

In no universe is Rosenthal on SDTex more prestigious than Cote in SDNY, or even Pooler for that matter. I don’t even think that’d be the case at Susman.

[Anonymous User]

I'm not sure the lighter caseload is a wholly bad thing. IMO most senior judges start by avoiding cases that are known to be unpleasant slogs (ERISA, AEDPA, etc) and eventually whittle down to only the things they're really interested in. The former is pretty pleasant, by all accounts, but the latter might be worrisome.

Above anon -- I've heard of the bolded as something senior district court judges do frequently, but not as much with senior court of appeal judges. My understanding of how it works at least on CA9 is that senior COA judges typically set a percentage of the normal caseload (e.g. 50%) and then just get that many days of panel assignments. I don't remember the exact number of argument days active CA9 judges currently get, but if it's something like 40, a senior judge on 50% case load would get 20. As far as I know it doesn't get more fine-grained that because while the clerk generally tries to group similar cases together, you still generally have a variety of different types of case on any given argument day, from habeas to immigration to civil to whatever else. But I didn't clerk for a senior judge and could be totally off-base, maybe there's more happening behind the scenes that I didn't see.

Also iirc there are a number of CA9 senior judges who don't sit on any merits panels and just do screening panels (staff attorneys present easy cases very quickly; judges either agree with the recommendation or decline screening and send the case to a merits panel) or motions panels (what the name on the tin suggests). That, IMO, would be a bleak shadow of a normal clerkship experience. But I believe most judges on that type of plan just have a single career clerk if they have any clerks at all.

All that said I agree it's not necessarily a bad thing to have a lighter caseload, especially since most senior judges on reduced case loads also have fewer clerks and more spread-out arguments (i.e.: you might be able to entirely avoid the dreaded five-day fiestas that most CA9 clerks hate; it's so much better to have a 2-day argument month and a 3-day argument month back to back than a single 5-day argument month). Just do your research on the judge and ask questions. Think we're all in agreement on that.

[cheaptilts]

Clerking for a senior district judge is usually a good thing for the clerk. But note that some judges go senior and stop hearing criminal cases altogether. Aside from that, I don’t see many downsides.

Clerking for a senior judge on the CoA means you will never get a chance to be part of an en banc appeal, which is a minor deal most of the time but also in some years a CoA can hear 3-5 very consequential cases en banc, in which case you’re guaranteed to
miss out on all the fun. You will almost certainly write fewer opinions too, which can be both good or bad depending on what you’re trying to get out of the experience.

[Anonymous User]

As a former CA9 clerk, participating in the en banc process is exhausting (if you have a judge that is moderately involved, at least, which is not all of the active judges) on top of the already heavy caseload. A couple of senior judges still call cases en banc (they just don't vote), so you if you are clerking for one of them, you can still sort of get the best of both worlds if you are worried about not having a chance to play in that particular sandbox. But I wouldn't tell people that are clerking for senior judges that they are missing out on anything, at least on CA9.

I generally think there's no prestige hit for clerking for a senior judge with 95% of your legal employment audience. That said, my COA judge asked specifically whether my district court judge was senior during the interview, in a way that heavily implied that the COA judge would have thought less of my application if my answer had been yes. So apparently it matters for some people.

[moxcoal]

Calabresi and Edwards are senior judges.. anyone have any idea on their prestige?

Jokes aside, there’s not really a difference in optics. Practically, you may want to stay away from judges with a hugely diminished caseload.

[Anonymous User]

I don't think there is much of a prestige hit, beyond the fact that (in general) senior judges are less desirable because they simply will not be around for as a great a portion of the clerk's career.

[nixy]

I don't think there is much of a prestige hit, beyond the fact that (in general) senior judges are less desirable because they simply will not be around for as a great a portion of the clerk's career.

The flip side of this is that they've had a longer time to make connections, so you get access to a better network.

Like everyone has said, it really depends on the judge, not the status.

[Anonymous User]

It will have no impact on a clerkship bonus at any firm, and it will be a non-issue to virtually every employer (particularly if your senior judge is otherwise well-regarded). For what it's worth, I clerked for a senior district judge in a mid-sized city and it was an awesome experience - it was a 9-5 job most of the time, but I still managed to learn a ton, developed a great relationship with my judge, and was well ahead of the curve when I started at a firm the following year.

[Wild Card]

1.) Yes, you'll get a clerkship bonus.
2.) I don't think seniority impacts prestige at all, at least among people who know. Sophisticated parties can look past court/title to see the judge's actual quality (consider Pryor on 11, Rosenthal on SDTX - neither on "prestige" courts, but far more "prestigious" clerkships than e.g. Cote on SDNY or Pooler on CA2).

Damn, I didn't know there were TTT SDNY judges.

[soft blue]

Maybe being unfair to Cote. Point isn't that she's TTT or whatever, just that a Cote clerkship (objectively impressive) doesn't ring out the same way any number of non-"prestige-district" ones do.

That said, the White Plains SDNY slots are definitely significantly less prestigious than Manhattan ones, even though it's "all SDNY." Maybe I'm just a horrible elitist?

[enoca]

I think the point is Cote seems a weird one to single out on SDNY for lack of "prestige." There are a billion SDNY judges, especially if we are counting the seniors like Cote, and seems like you could probably find a better example of one whose name doesn't have "star power" or whatever.

[moxcoal]

Maybe being unfair to Cote. Point isn't that she's TTT or whatever, just that a Cote clerkship (objectively impressive) doesn't ring out the same way any number of non-"prestige-district" ones do.

That said, the White Plains SDNY slots are definitely significantly less prestigious than Manhattan ones, even though it's "all SDNY." Maybe I'm just a horrible elitist?

Yeah, you’re a horrible elitist. Definitely significantly less prestigious, my ass