Top ~10-15% @ mid T14, no w.e., appellate internship this summer. How competitive am I competitive for circuits? Forum

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Top ~10-15% @ mid T14, no w.e., appellate internship this summer. How competitive am I competitive for circuits?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Jun 08, 2022 12:18 am

Went from top ~40% to top ~10-15% this semester, so all the personalized info I've gotten from profs, upperclassmen, and career services is basically useless. Just want to get an idea before talking to profs about appellate clerkships. Thanks all.

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Re: Top ~10-15% @ mid T14, no w.e., appellate internship this summer. How competitive am I competitive for circuits?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Jun 08, 2022 11:07 am

By appellate intern do you mean you are a judicial intern for a court of appeals judge?

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Re: Top ~10-15% @ mid T14, no w.e., appellate internship this summer. How competitive am I competitive for circuits?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Jun 08, 2022 1:17 pm

Law Review? Moot Court? Did you go to 10-15% by taking black letter law classes or with seminars/survey classes? Have you talked to any professors or to the clerkship office since getting your new ranking?

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Re: Top ~10-15% @ mid T14, no w.e., appellate internship this summer. How competitive am I competitive for circuits?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Jun 08, 2022 2:20 pm

Usual advice here: apply around to non-feeders, especially those that have a history of hiring from your school. You're competitive but by no means a slam dunk. Success in black-letter classes, a good writing sample, and good recommendations will all help you get an interview. If you do get an interview, being personable helps enormously. Being a URM or having the correct political ideology will also help with some judges. Senior judges and judges in secondary cities often get fewer applications and may give you higher odds of success, but generally speaking, the best predictor of where you'll get interviews is how often the judge hires from your school.

If you do not get an offer now (I assume you just finished 2L?) but are committed to wanting to do a COA clerkship, getting a district clerkship and practicing for a couple years will give you an enormous boost with many judges.

Edit: I see now you're a 1L, so for now just focus on taking and doing well in good classes 2L year (fed courts, evidence, crim pro, statutory interpretation are all helpful), and maybe looking for a paper class as an opportunity to get a good writing sample. If you're FedSoc you can probably start applying now to the off-plan conservative judges, and depending on your conservative credentials you'd have a very good chance of getting hired.

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Re: Top ~10-15% @ mid T14, no w.e., appellate internship this summer. How competitive am I competitive for circuits?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Jun 08, 2022 5:26 pm

Unless you’re a member of Fed Soc, there’s no use in thinking about clerkships right now—most liberals abide by the plan and even those who don’t usually look for 1.5 years of grades. If you’re a liberal, your grades aren’t near good enough for the liberal judges to elide the plan to hire you.

Focus on doing even better during 2L, developing more relationships with professors, and figuring out who you want to clerk for and where.

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Re: Top ~10-15% @ mid T14, no w.e., appellate internship this summer. How competitive am I competitive for circuits?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Jun 08, 2022 5:51 pm

Your grades aren't high enough to be a competitive applicant on 1L grades alone. Try to raise your GPA this fall with at least two black-letter law classes that are graded on the curve and then start applying 2L spring. This will give you time to get at least two faculty recommenders locked.

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Re: Top ~10-15% @ mid T14, no w.e., appellate internship this summer. How competitive am I competitive for circuits?

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Jun 09, 2022 1:00 pm

Just re-affirming that (both for OP and others in similar situations who may be viewing this thread), if you are conservative and involved with your school's chapter of FedSoc (which should hopefully be giving 1L's clerkship advice), these 1L grades ARE good enough to make you competitive for conservative non-feeders, and you should be applying to those now.

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Re: Top ~10-15% @ mid T14, no w.e., appellate internship this summer. How competitive am I competitive for circuits?

Post by Fantasyfreak294 » Sun Jun 19, 2022 4:47 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Wed Jun 08, 2022 1:17 pm
Law Review? Moot Court? Did you go to 10-15% by taking black letter law classes or with seminars/survey classes? Have you talked to any professors or to the clerkship office since getting your new ranking?
This is a big one - the "what kind of classes" did you get your grades by inquiry.

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Re: Top ~10-15% @ mid T14, no w.e., appellate internship this summer. How competitive am I competitive for circuits?

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Jun 19, 2022 6:12 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Wed Jun 08, 2022 5:26 pm
Unless you’re a member of Fed Soc, there’s no use in thinking about clerkships right now—most liberals abide by the plan and even those who don’t usually look for 1.5 years of grades. If you’re a liberal, your grades aren’t near good enough for the liberal judges to elide the plan to hire you.
Just want to tweak this a bit: you don't need to be in FedSoc to apply early to conservative judges. I'm a lefty and will be working for a FedSoc judge who hires plenty of left-leaning clerks. Don't write off a killer experience and resume item based on a heuristic—especially because clerkship hiring is totally idiosyncratic.

Just apply. You never know what'll happen, you'll have already asked professors to invest in you (and getting them to update a letter is way easier than getting them to write one in the first place), and you'll get ahead of the game for 2L applications.

I've got a friend who struck out post-1L, but a new round of applications during 2L spring and with worse grades yielded two invitations (and an offer) before 2L grades came out. There's no reason not to apply early.

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