Mistakes While Clerking Forum

[Anonymous User]

Have any of you made non-trivial mistakes during your clerkship? Or mistakes that felt significant but looking back weren’t that big of a deal? How did your judge react?

[Anonymous User]

Once during my court of appeals clerkship, I drafted an opinion that inadvertently failed to address an argument raised by one of the parties. We circulated the opinion to the other two members of the panel and one of the other judges emailed back saying something like, “Um… why doesn’t this opinion address X argument?” I frantically reviewed the briefs, determined the argument in question was waived, revised the opinion, and sent a long email to my judge explaining what happened. Then my judge called me on my cell, screamed at me, said “fuck” a bunch of times, and told me the mistake was unacceptable. Once he could tell that I was crying, he felt kinda bad and backed off. The next day he apologized, and I reiterated to him that it was an extremely uncharacteristic mistake and that nothing like that would ever happen again (which it didn’t). Ultimately, it wasn’t a big deal. On the last day of the clerkship months later, he even told me that among the three term clerks, I was the clerk whose writing required the least editing. He’s written me a letter of recommendation and we are on friendly terms. Still, the experience was traumatic and it remains one of the worst professional experiences of my life. It’s funny because I worked in biglaw and have been yelled at a bunch of times but somehow the clerking snafu felt so much worse.

[Anonymous User]

Then my judge called me on my cell, screamed at me, said “fuck” a bunch of times, and told me the mistake was unacceptable.

um what

also, my judge usually reviews briefs and draft opinions before circulating them. i guess relying on your recent grad clerks and then screaming at them until they cry if they miss something might work too sometimes.

[Anonymous User]

Once during my court of appeals clerkship, I drafted an opinion that inadvertently failed to address an argument raised by one of the parties. We circulated the opinion to the other two members of the panel and one of the other judges emailed back saying something like, “Um… why doesn’t this opinion address X argument?” I frantically reviewed the briefs, determined the argument in question was waived, revised the opinion, and sent a long email to my judge explaining what happened. Then my judge called me on my cell, screamed at me, said “fuck” a bunch of times, and told me the mistake was unacceptable. Once he could tell that I was crying, he felt kinda bad and backed off. The next day he apologized, and I reiterated to him that it was an extremely uncharacteristic mistake and that nothing like that would ever happen again (which it didn’t). Ultimately, it wasn’t a big deal. On the last day of the clerkship months later, he even told me that among the three term clerks, I was the clerk whose writing required the least editing. He’s written me a letter of recommendation and we are on friendly terms. Still, the experience was traumatic and it remains one of the worst professional experiences of my life. It’s funny because I worked in biglaw and have been yelled at a bunch of times but somehow the clerking snafu felt so much worse.

Thank you for sharing! That is very traumatic. I definitely would've cried too. I don't think my judges would ever scream at me, and I think they would be disappointed but also realize the buck stops with them on something like this. Glad it all worked out though! A good reminder that what may feel like a catastrophe in the moment can be smoothed over relatively quickly.

[lavarman84]

Have any of you made non-trivial mistakes during your clerkship? Or mistakes that felt significant but looking back weren’t that big of a deal? How did your judge react?

On the district court, I made a copying and pasting error from a template document that required us to file a corrected order. I brought it to my judge's attention as soon as I found out about it. He wasn't upset. But I learned to take a little extra time to scrutinize things to ensure the mistake wouldn't happen again.

I don't recall anything non-trivial from my COA clerkship. But both the judges I clerked for were chill, kind people. So I may not remember just because it wouldn't have been treated as a big deal. They knew I was putting the effort in.

[Anonymous User]

Lucky for me, most of my non-trivial mistakes were of the "didn't notice them for 3 months and then caught them RIGHT before they went out the door" type. Don't skimp on that final review, kids. You might learn that you've been using the wrong abbreviation for an agency, or that you've fallen prey to the horrible pubic/public typo. Or, more troublingly, that the case you've relied on has been overturned, but that the case overturning it fucked up the citation, so your case never got a red Westlaw flag and keycite showed no issues. You know, minor things like that.

One that I didn't catch was an amazing learning experience. During my district court clerkship, we were assigned a case that had been removed from state court. Either the plaintiff was pro se or the pro se office elected to have some hand in it, because we received this extensive memo about how the removal technically violated one of the removal rules (I don't remember which it was, but it wasn't jurisdictional. Maybe the forum-defendant rule?) and that remand sua sponte back to state court was appropriate. It came with a proposed order remanding the thing and everything. My judge had been around for a while, and everyone in the pro se office had also been around for a while, so I assumed this person knew what he or she was talking about. It also sounded reasonable. Ran it by the judge, and the judge thought it was reasonable. One less case, amirite? So we waited a few days, passing beyond the 1447(c) 30-day window, and entered the sua sponte order kicking it back to state court.

Well! Turns out that isn't a thing you do. Nonjurisdictional defects in removal are waived without a motion to remand. This didn't come to my attention because of a party's protest, mind you. It came to my attention because, a day or so after we filed the order, I thought, "Gee, this sounds interesting, I'd love to know more about sua sponte remand. Let's do a Westlaw search on what I just recommended doing and then what we actually did. OH JESUS BAD."

Now, I had an out! The defendant didn't seem to really care that much, and the appeal-after-bad-remand-order rules are opaque enough so that we might not have gotten appealed. So I had a choice. I could say nothing and hope that the mistake passed unnoticed. Or I could throw myself on the fire pit.

I decided, for some stupid reason, to throw myself on the fire pit. "I fucked up, let's fix this." And, learning experience: the judge was a bit peeved (HOW COULD YOU NOT READ THE CASES?), but appreciated that I owned up to it. So we fixed it, withdrawing the order, making sure everything was OK, and everything.

The case ended up being a total dog that tormented everyone for years afterwards. But I still think I did the right thing. And it imparted a helpful lesson about owning up to problems ASAP and fixing them as quickly as possible.

[Anonymous User]

I think it’s basically impossible to never make a mistake as a trial court clerk. The job is just too hard, and there’s too much work, to never screw something up. I don’t think COA clerks always realize that trial court clerks are putting out multiple orders (e.g. the remand order a previous poster described) every day in addition to all of the opinions. I think most judges understand that mistakes happen, and very few can’t be corrected if caught in a timely manner, though it’s embarrassing if the person who catches it is a party, which I saw happen once or twice.

[Anonymous User]

Then my judge called me on my cell, screamed at me, said “fuck” a bunch of times, and told me the mistake was unacceptable.

um what

also, my judge usually reviews briefs and draft opinions before circulating them. i guess relying on your recent grad clerks and then screaming at them until they cry if they miss something might work too sometimes.

TBF, I can see assuming your clerks would at least address all the issues and reviewing the opinion but not the briefs (depending on the workload in chambers). Doesn’t justify the screaming though - I get that judges don’t want to look dumb in front of their colleagues but that seems way over the top for something that didn’t affect the overall outcome and wasn’t published. (I appreciate that the judge apologized on their own, but doesn’t make the experience any less traumatic.)

I’m lucky in that I didn’t make any noticeable/memorable mistakes, but the flip side was that I was pretty slow, which I got away with because it was a less intense district. In some courts with the volume of stuff going through chambers, making mistakes has got to be inevitable.

And if the pro se office gave me a detailed memo supporting a particular course of action I totally get relying on that (especially as a clerk. I’m way more suspicious and jaded having practiced for a while, but as a clerk I would totally have assumed everyone else knew what they were doing).

[Anonymous User]

My district court judge doesn’t really care, as long as we own up to it and fix it/offer a solution. Very few mistakes can’t be fixed.

My COA judge, genuinely the best boss I’ve ever had, was the sort of person who would thank us for catching a mistake and correcting it. Or if it went out the door with a mistake, the judge would own it as *his* mistake, not ours, since he was the one who gives the final sign off.

I think with both I learned that it’s always best to own up to a mistake and try to fix it right away rather than ignore it and hope it doesn’t notice. If your judge is a decent person, they’ll be grateful you do that.

[Anonymous User]

I frequently make minor, non-substantive typos that my judge catches and fixes when we're sending drafts back and forth. He doesn't mention them.

My co-clerk had to grant a motion for reconsideration because of something she definitely messed up. My judge was obviously not thrilled but treated it as equally his failure, because he had missed it too.

I think this is the norm. Most judges will express some displeasure over substantive errors but hopefully should recognize they're the ones signing the order, and we're recent law grads.

[Anonymous User]

I frequently make minor, non-substantive typos that my judge catches and fixes when we're sending drafts back and forth. He doesn't mention them.

My co-clerk had to grant a motion for reconsideration because of something she definitely messed up. My judge was obviously not thrilled but treated it as equally his failure, because he had missed it too.

I think this is the norm. Most judges will express some displeasure over substantive errors but hopefully should recognize they're the ones signing the order, and we're recent law grads.

Are you guys in a busy district? I wonder how many substantive errors like that are common per year.

[Anonymous User]

Once during my court of appeals clerkship, I drafted an opinion that inadvertently failed to address an argument raised by one of the parties. We circulated the opinion to the other two members of the panel and one of the other judges emailed back saying something like, “Um… why doesn’t this opinion address X argument?” I frantically reviewed the briefs, determined the argument in question was waived, revised the opinion, and sent a long email to my judge explaining what happened. Then my judge called me on my cell, screamed at me, said “fuck” a bunch of times, and told me the mistake was unacceptable. Once he could tell that I was crying, he felt kinda bad and backed off. The next day he apologized, and I reiterated to him that it was an extremely uncharacteristic mistake and that nothing like that would ever happen again (which it didn’t). Ultimately, it wasn’t a big deal. On the last day of the clerkship months later, he even told me that among the three term clerks, I was the clerk whose writing required the least editing. He’s written me a letter of recommendation and we are on friendly terms. Still, the experience was traumatic and it remains one of the worst professional experiences of my life. It’s funny because I worked in biglaw and have been yelled at a bunch of times but somehow the clerking snafu felt so much worse.

This is seriously shocking to me. I’ve been in my COA clerkship for almost a year now and have never heard of a judge screaming at their law clerk. Although, I have heard that some judges in the past have been more harsh on their law clerks. I have made a few mistakes as well. One was serious, related to me being out for a few weeks for a surgery and missing an email for an assignment. I was horrified to learn of my mistake and thought I would be fired. But my judge has never said or done anything to reprimand me or scold me in a harsh manner. Plus, many times my co-clerks do not address every argument raised by the parties. I do, and my co-clerks think I’m too generous with the parties for doing so.

[Anonymous User]

Once during my court of appeals clerkship, I drafted an opinion that inadvertently failed to address an argument raised by one of the parties. We circulated the opinion to the other two members of the panel and one of the other judges emailed back saying something like, “Um… why doesn’t this opinion address X argument?” I frantically reviewed the briefs, determined the argument in question was waived, revised the opinion, and sent a long email to my judge explaining what happened. Then my judge called me on my cell, screamed at me, said “fuck” a bunch of times, and told me the mistake was unacceptable. Once he could tell that I was crying, he felt kinda bad and backed off. The next day he apologized, and I reiterated to him that it was an extremely uncharacteristic mistake and that nothing like that would ever happen again (which it didn’t). Ultimately, it wasn’t a big deal. On the last day of the clerkship months later, he even told me that among the three term clerks, I was the clerk whose writing required the least editing. He’s written me a letter of recommendation and we are on friendly terms. Still, the experience was traumatic and it remains one of the worst professional experiences of my life. It’s funny because I worked in biglaw and have been yelled at a bunch of times but somehow the clerking snafu felt so much worse.

This is seriously shocking to me. I’ve been in my COA clerkship for almost a year now and have never heard of a judge screaming at their law clerk. Although, I have heard that some judges in the past have been more harsh on their law clerks. I have made a few mistakes as well. One was serious, related to me being out for a few weeks for a surgery and missing an email for an assignment. I was horrified to learn of my mistake and thought I would be fired. But my judge has never said or done anything to reprimand me or scold me in a harsh manner. Plus, many times my co-clerks do not address every argument raised by the parties. I do, and my co-clerks think I’m too generous with the parties for doing so.

Current COA clerk and I've heard of at least 1/3 of the judges in my circuit screaming at their clerks. I wish this were shocking, but unfortunately the abuse described by OP is not uncommon IMO

[Anonymous User]

Once during my court of appeals clerkship, I drafted an opinion that inadvertently failed to address an argument raised by one of the parties. We circulated the opinion to the other two members of the panel and one of the other judges emailed back saying something like, “Um… why doesn’t this opinion address X argument?” I frantically reviewed the briefs, determined the argument in question was waived, revised the opinion, and sent a long email to my judge explaining what happened. Then my judge called me on my cell, screamed at me, said “fuck” a bunch of times, and told me the mistake was unacceptable. Once he could tell that I was crying, he felt kinda bad and backed off. The next day he apologized, and I reiterated to him that it was an extremely uncharacteristic mistake and that nothing like that would ever happen again (which it didn’t). Ultimately, it wasn’t a big deal. On the last day of the clerkship months later, he even told me that among the three term clerks, I was the clerk whose writing required the least editing. He’s written me a letter of recommendation and we are on friendly terms. Still, the experience was traumatic and it remains one of the worst professional experiences of my life. It’s funny because I worked in biglaw and have been yelled at a bunch of times but somehow the clerking snafu felt so much worse.

This is seriously shocking to me. I’ve been in my COA clerkship for almost a year now and have never heard of a judge screaming at their law clerk. Although, I have heard that some judges in the past have been more harsh on their law clerks. I have made a few mistakes as well. One was serious, related to me being out for a few weeks for a surgery and missing an email for an assignment. I was horrified to learn of my mistake and thought I would be fired. But my judge has never said or done anything to reprimand me or scold me in a harsh manner. Plus, many times my co-clerks do not address every argument raised by the parties. I do, and my co-clerks think I’m too generous with the parties for doing so.

Current COA clerk and I've heard of at least 1/3 of the judges in my circuit screaming at their clerks. I wish this were shocking, but unfortunately the abuse described by OP is not uncommon IMO

Can you say which circuit?

[Anonymous User]

Could be the Tenth, which judging by my clerkship office’s blacklist seems to have a disproportionate number of highly difficult judges.

[Anonymous User]

Once during my court of appeals clerkship, I drafted an opinion that inadvertently failed to address an argument raised by one of the parties. We circulated the opinion to the other two members of the panel and one of the other judges emailed back saying something like, “Um… why doesn’t this opinion address X argument?” I frantically reviewed the briefs, determined the argument in question was waived, revised the opinion, and sent a long email to my judge explaining what happened. Then my judge called me on my cell, screamed at me, said “fuck” a bunch of times, and told me the mistake was unacceptable. Once he could tell that I was crying, he felt kinda bad and backed off. The next day he apologized, and I reiterated to him that it was an extremely uncharacteristic mistake and that nothing like that would ever happen again (which it didn’t). Ultimately, it wasn’t a big deal. On the last day of the clerkship months later, he even told me that among the three term clerks, I was the clerk whose writing required the least editing. He’s written me a letter of recommendation and we are on friendly terms. Still, the experience was traumatic and it remains one of the worst professional experiences of my life. It’s funny because I worked in biglaw and have been yelled at a bunch of times but somehow the clerking snafu felt so much worse.

This is seriously shocking to me. I’ve been in my COA clerkship for almost a year now and have never heard of a judge screaming at their law clerk. Although, I have heard that some judges in the past have been more harsh on their law clerks. I have made a few mistakes as well. One was serious, related to me being out for a few weeks for a surgery and missing an email for an assignment. I was horrified to learn of my mistake and thought I would be fired. But my judge has never said or done anything to reprimand me or scold me in a harsh manner. Plus, many times my co-clerks do not address every argument raised by the parties. I do, and my co-clerks think I’m too generous with the parties for doing so.

I frequently don't address issues if they're not dispositive and/or completely inane. It can be a judgment call.

[Anonymous User]

Could be the Tenth, which judging by my clerkship office’s blacklist seems to have a disproportionate number of highly difficult judges.

Who besides Holmes and Matheson?

[Anonymous User]

Could be the Tenth, which judging by my clerkship office’s blacklist seems to have a disproportionate number of highly difficult judges.

Who besides Holmes and Matheson?

Heard from my school that Hartz is rough too

[Anonymous User]

Could be the Tenth, which judging by my clerkship office’s blacklist seems to have a disproportionate number of highly difficult judges.

Who besides Holmes and Matheson?

Heard from my school that Hartz is rough too

And Lucero, though my office said he wasn’t blacklisted as hard as Hartz and Holmes, one of whom fired a clerk and the other of whom threw a chair at a clerk (really, though I don’t remember which was which at this point)

[Anonymous User]

Could be the Tenth, which judging by my clerkship office’s blacklist seems to have a disproportionate number of highly difficult judges.

Who besides Holmes and Matheson?

Heard from my school that Hartz is rough too

And Lucero, though my office said he wasn’t blacklisted as hard as Hartz and Holmes, one of whom fired a clerk and the other of whom threw a chair at a clerk (really, though I don’t remember which was which at this point)

A CHAIR? In a just world seems like that should be grounds for impeachment, if true.

[Anonymous User]

Could be the Tenth, which judging by my clerkship office’s blacklist seems to have a disproportionate number of highly difficult judges.

Who besides Holmes and Matheson?

Heard from my school that Hartz is rough too

And Lucero, though my office said he wasn’t blacklisted as hard as Hartz and Holmes, one of whom fired a clerk and the other of whom threw a chair at a clerk (really, though I don’t remember which was which at this point)

If a judge attacks you with a chair, can you defend yourself? Belting a judge would be probably the best way to get blacklisted (although probably imprisoned)

[Reese1]

Could be the Tenth, which judging by my clerkship office’s blacklist seems to have a disproportionate number of highly difficult judges.

Who besides Holmes and Matheson?

Heard from my school that Hartz is rough too

And Lucero, though my office said he wasn’t blacklisted as hard as Hartz and Holmes, one of whom fired a clerk and the other of whom threw a chair at a clerk (really, though I don’t remember which was which at this point)

A CHAIR? In a just world seems like that should be grounds for impeachment, if true.

It is the senate's fault for confirming Bobby Knight

[Anonymous User]

Could be the Tenth, which judging by my clerkship office’s blacklist seems to have a disproportionate number of highly difficult judges.

Your school has a blacklist? I would love to hear more about those judges

[Anonymous User]

All these horror stories, I gotta ask...do judges really just not check your work or ever do any legal research at all? Maybe this is naive of me but this seems bad!

[Anonymous User]

All these horror stories, I gotta ask...do judges really just not check your work or ever do any legal research at all? Maybe this is naive of me but this seems bad!

It varies a lot and depends on the judge and the case. But to a certain extent the whole point of you being there is to do the research for the judge.