Addressing Cover Letter to Nominee Forum

[jessuan]

Hi all,

the title is pretty self-explanatory. I want to send an application to a pending nominee, but I'm not sure how to address the cover letter. Should it be "Attorney [Name]" or something else? Thanks in advance for any tips you can offer!

[GavinMcG]

I have no special expertise here, but as they don't have a title I would not try to shoehorn one in. Letters to lawyers are addressed to their name, and the salutation is "Dear Ms. X:", or these days "Dear First name:", but not "Dear Attorney X:".

[Anonymous User]

Definitely Mr. or Ms., unless obviously they're already a lower-court judge, a professor, or have a PhD. You will likely never address the judge by his or her first name while working for him ("Judge" just kind of becomes their first name), so you don't want to do that in the cover letter.

[Anonymous User]

Not OP, but interested in a specific recent nominee. Just wondering if new judges tend to want to hire people who have clerked already? And/or tend to recruit from their own professional networks for their first batch of clerks rather than send out a broader call for applications? Trying to figure out if I should somehow try to network my way to getting my materials in front of the nominee ASAP—or if I can sit back for now and wait for them to be confirmed.

Also, do newly confirmed judges’ first group of clerks typically do a full year, or do they do a truncated term (so the judge can get on plan ASAP)?

[Anonymous User]

Yes, a lot of new appointees do prefer to hire people who have already clerked and/or who they already know they could work with.

I don’t know how they handle the off-schedule thing - I’d suspect it’s sort of ad hoc/depends on the judge and the clerks. I’d think the original clerks would be more likely to go a year+ than to have short term though.

[Anonymous User]

Not OP, but interested in a specific recent nominee. Just wondering if new judges tend to want to hire people who have clerked already? And/or tend to recruit from their own professional networks for their first batch of clerks rather than send out a broader call for applications? Trying to figure out if I should somehow try to network my way to getting my materials in front of the nominee ASAP—or if I can sit back for now and wait for them to be confirmed.

Also, do newly confirmed judges’ first group of clerks typically do a full year, or do they do a truncated term (so the judge can get on plan ASAP)?

Current clerk to new judge here. The important thing to know is they do not have OSCAR until after they are already on the bench, so I imagine just about none of them use OSCAR to hire their initial clerk or two. I had somewhat aggressively sent the judge an application at their prior work address after their Senate hearing but before their confirmation, and my co-clerk was referred through a professor friend of the judge.

My judge is not going on the plan because s/he's requiring a few years of work experience, but the initial clerks are going 18-24 months because we did not get a ton of courtroom time in the judge's first 6 months of tenure.

[Lawperson1892]

Not OP, but interested in a specific recent nominee. Just wondering if new judges tend to want to hire people who have clerked already? And/or tend to recruit from their own professional networks for their first batch of clerks rather than send out a broader call for applications? Trying to figure out if I should somehow try to network my way to getting my materials in front of the nominee ASAP—or if I can sit back for now and wait for them to be confirmed.

Also, do newly confirmed judges’ first group of clerks typically do a full year, or do they do a truncated term (so the judge can get on plan ASAP)?

Current clerk to new judge here. The important thing to know is they do not have OSCAR until after they are already on the bench, so I imagine just about none of them use OSCAR to hire their initial clerk or two. I had somewhat aggressively sent the judge an application at their prior work address after their Senate hearing but before their confirmation, and my co-clerk was referred through a professor friend of the judge.

My judge is not going on the plan because s/he's requiring a few years of work experience, but the initial clerks are going 18-24 months because we did not get a ton of courtroom time in the judge's first 6 months of tenure.

Any advice on sending a judge an application after their hearing but before their confirmation? It worked for you so you must have done something right.

[Anonymous User]

Not OP, but interested in a specific recent nominee. Just wondering if new judges tend to want to hire people who have clerked already? And/or tend to recruit from their own professional networks for their first batch of clerks rather than send out a broader call for applications? Trying to figure out if I should somehow try to network my way to getting my materials in front of the nominee ASAP—or if I can sit back for now and wait for them to be confirmed.

Also, do newly confirmed judges’ first group of clerks typically do a full year, or do they do a truncated term (so the judge can get on plan ASAP)?

Current clerk to new judge here. The important thing to know is they do not have OSCAR until after they are already on the bench, so I imagine just about none of them use OSCAR to hire their initial clerk or two. I had somewhat aggressively sent the judge an application at their prior work address after their Senate hearing but before their confirmation, and my co-clerk was referred through a professor friend of the judge.

My judge is not going on the plan because s/he's requiring a few years of work experience, but the initial clerks are going 18-24 months because we did not get a ton of courtroom time in the judge's first 6 months of tenure.

Any advice on sending a judge an application after their hearing but before their confirmation? It worked for you so you must have done something right.

Nothing special. I opened my cover letter with congratulations and said that, if you are confirmed, I would like to be considered for your initial class of law clerks. I heard back from the judge before the confirmation vote, advising me that I'd hear about an interview after confirmation. If you don't hear back, I'd send another application a day after the confirmation vote to the courthouse where the judge will sit. The mail room will hold it for them.