Judicial Internship before Clerking? Forum

[Anonymous User]

3L with federal district court clerkship (D. Mass/N.D. Ill./E.D. Pa.) lined up for after graduation, but I haven't done a judicial internship in law school yet. Is it worth doing an internship spring semester of 3L to prepare for the clerkship/get some experience with the court & chambers, or is that unnecessary/redundant?

If I were to do the externship, it would be in the same district court I'm clerking in. Goal is direct-services PI work after the clerkship, and I'm leaning towards trying for a COA clerkship after my district court one (though also good with going right into PI via a fellowship).

Thanks for any thoughts!

[Anonymous User]

3L with federal district court clerkship (D. Mass/N.D. Ill./E.D. Pa.) lined up for after graduation, but I haven't done a judicial internship in law school yet. Is it worth doing an internship spring semester of 3L to prepare for the clerkship/get some experience with the court & chambers, or is that unnecessary/redundant?

If I were to do the externship, it would be in the same district court I'm clerking in. Goal is direct-services PI work after the clerkship, and I'm leaning towards trying for a COA clerkship after my district court one (though also good with going right into PI via a fellowship).

Thanks for any thoughts!

As a current clerk who interned during law school, I would recommend it. YMMV depending on how the chambers uses its interns, but you will almost certainly gain familiarity with some areas of federal law not commonly covered in law school -- e.g habeas, social security, sentencing -- and you will also gain another connection to the court you'll be clerking in.

I don't see much of a downside here, unless there are several law school classes that you'd rather be taking. (FWIW, I wouldn't be worried about trying to cram in bar classes like Wills & Trusts or Secured Transactions in your last semester, if you lack interest in them. The bar prep course you take will tell you everything you need to know to pass).

[nixy]

I don't think it would hurt and so if you really want to do the internship, go for it, but I do think it's kind of redundant/unnecessary. I don't think it will much alter the learning curve everyone goes through when they first clerk (I did 2 judicial internships and it was still a big change to clerk).

[shoebox]

I thought my internship was a good preview for clerking, but every chambers is different and YMMV. The place I interned basically treated the interns as junior clerks. The only downside is that, as I recall, I only received like 4 credits for my 20+ hours a week, so balancing the internship with a mostly full set of classes/law review/moot court was a ton of work. Other schools handle it differently - some let you basically intern full time and give you a full semester's worth of credits for it.

[LBJ's Hair]

Think it depends entirely on chambers. My COA judge liked having interns around as like, young people to entertain him/her at lunch. But we would never, ever rely on them for substantive work.

[lavarman84]

I don't think it would hurt and so if you really want to do the internship, go for it, but I do think it's kind of redundant/unnecessary. I don't think it will much alter the learning curve everyone goes through when they first clerk (I did 2 judicial internships and it was still a big change to clerk).

I agree. If you want to do it, do it. But it's not remotely necessary, and what you get to do depends on chambers. Some chambers will trust you to handle substantive work. Others will just give you busy work. Although, I would think being a 3L with a clerkship lined up would help in that respect (i.e., clerks will assume you're more competent than the average intern).

[mjb447]

I don't think it would hurt and so if you really want to do the internship, go for it, but I do think it's kind of redundant/unnecessary. I don't think it will much alter the learning curve everyone goes through when they first clerk (I did 2 judicial internships and it was still a big change to clerk).

I agree. If you want to do it, do it. But it's not remotely necessary, and what you get to do depends on chambers. Some chambers will trust you to handle substantive work. Others will just give you busy work. Although, I would think being a 3L with a clerkship lined up would help in that respect (i.e., clerks will assume you're more competent than the average intern).

+1. It mostly depends on what your other options are – I wouldn't forego some other exciting opportunity to do it, but nothing wrong with going for it if there's nothing else you really want to do during that time.

[Anonymous User]

OP here - thanks for the responses, everyone. Should I be asking the judge I'll be clerking for about this? I'm not really sure how often I should check in/keep in touch with the judge before the clerkship actually starts.

If it makes a difference, I'd want to extern at the local or federal public defender's office if I weren't doing the judicial externship.

[Jchance]

OP here - thanks for the responses, everyone. Should I be asking the judge I'll be clerking for about this? I'm not really sure how often I should check in/keep in touch with the judge before the clerkship actually starts.

If it makes a difference, I'd want to extern at the local or federal public defender's office if I weren't doing the judicial externship.

I'd extern at the federal defender's office or USAO instead of the redundant judicial externship. No need to ask the judge, which you'd need to follow whatever advice s/he gives.

[Anonymous User]

OP here - thanks for the responses, everyone. Should I be asking the judge I'll be clerking for about this? I'm not really sure how often I should check in/keep in touch with the judge before the clerkship actually starts.

If it makes a difference, I'd want to extern at the local or federal public defender's office if I weren't doing the judicial externship.

Intern at the Fed PD and get a sense of what they like and don't like about the judges in the district

[nixy]

OP here - thanks for the responses, everyone. Should I be asking the judge I'll be clerking for about this? I'm not really sure how often I should check in/keep in touch with the judge before the clerkship actually starts.

If it makes a difference, I'd want to extern at the local or federal public defender's office if I weren't doing the judicial externship.

I think you should do the PD internship.

As for staying in touch with the judge, there’s no real requirement for staying in touch. If there’s some sort of natural reason to reach out you certainly can (I think one person about to clerk sent a holiday card to chambers, for instance), but it’s also pretty common not really to have contact until you have to fill out paperwork/set start dates.

The only reason to talk to judge about the internship is if where you intern could have any cases before the judge during your clerkship, because you might be conflicted out of those cases.

[shoebox]

OP here - thanks for the responses, everyone. Should I be asking the judge I'll be clerking for about this? I'm not really sure how often I should check in/keep in touch with the judge before the clerkship actually starts.

If it makes a difference, I'd want to extern at the local or federal public defender's office if I weren't doing the judicial externship.

If working for the public defender is something you might want to do down the line, that's definitely the way to go. Build connections and see if you like it.

[Anonymous User]

OP here - thanks for the responses, everyone. Should I be asking the judge I'll be clerking for about this? I'm not really sure how often I should check in/keep in touch with the judge before the clerkship actually starts.

If it makes a difference, I'd want to extern at the local or federal public defender's office if I weren't doing the judicial externship.

Intern at the Fed PD and get a sense of what they like and don't like about the judges in the district

+1, I interned at a criminal defense firm shortly before clerking and it was both substantively useful to see the nuts and bolts of the criminal process from the defense perspective, which is not something you get in biglaw SAs at all obviously and to some extent even clerking (e.g. interacting with clients, plea bargaining, etc.), and if not useful at least very interesting to get the attorneys' perspectives on the judges and other practitioners