Are Clerkships the Great Equalizer? Forum

[Anonymous User]

The goal is a Susman, Kellogg type lit boutique.
Does going to Alabama or Kentucky on a full ride hurt my chances? (these schools punch way above their weight in clerkship placement: placed 10.9% and 10.5% of their 2021 grads into clerkships, respectively)
Does securing a COA clerkship outshine your law schools' rank? Or does law school prestige genuinely matter to these boutiques?
I have a feeling I could attend UVA, WUSTL, or Vandy on a small scholly if need be.

[Anonymous User]

The goal is a Susman, Kellogg type lit boutique.
Does going to Alabama or Kentucky on a full ride hurt my chances? (these schools punch way above their weight in clerkship placement: placed 10.9% and 10.5% of their 2021 grads into clerkships, respectively)
Does securing a COA clerkship outshine your law schools' rank? Or does law school prestige genuinely matter to these boutiques?
I have a feeling I could attend UVA, WUSTL, or Vandy on a small scholly if need be.

If you literally graduate as the top person at Alabama or Kentucky, then you might be able to achieve your clerkship and lit boutique goals. But it would be absurd to expect to be in that position. If you want to go to Susman or Kellogg then you need to go to a T14 and graduate with some type of honors and/or Law Review. The same goes for securing competitive clerkships.

[Anonymous User]

I don’t think that clerkships *radically* transform you as a candidate. They can open the door to an opportunity that requires a clerkship (literally or in practice), but you still need to be competitive. I say this primarily based on seeing clerks post here struggling to get the kind of post-clerkship employment they thought clerking would help them get.

Don’t get me wrong - clerking is almost always more helpful than not clerking, and you can use the clerkship to make connections that will help you get a job more easily. But if you go to Alabama or Kentucky, and you want to get hired by a firm that doesn’t regularly hire Alabama or Kentucky grads, you’re not going to change that just by virtue of doing a clerkship. You might change it by being the literal top of your class, clerking for an influential judge, and doing such a good job that the judge goes the extra mile to promote your application, but you’re banking on the stars aligning. (They’ll have to align at a t14, too, but school rank won’t be as important.)

[Chubbyleaous]

above
Does going to Alabama or Kentucky on a full ride hurt my chances?

Bama just lost to Vols after beating them 15 consecutive years

On the way off the field a Bama player hit a female Vols fan in the head

It's on video

I think you should prepare a response for this but it's touchy since you don't want to come off as disrespectful to Saban

[Anonymous User]

You can answer this question by just looking at Susman and Kellogg's websites and seeing who they hire. Although going into law school with the goal of clerking just to work 3000 hours at a lit boutique is a terrible idea.

[Anonymous User]

I’m not sure about boutiques, but I disagree that clerkships won’t make a candidate more competitive than they were before the clerkship. Plenty of people from “lesser” law schools (granted, they were near the top/at the top of their class) trade up from regional firms to larger, more prestigious firms after clerkships. It’s just not guaranteed that you’ll go to the most elite boutique in the world off of some clerkships, but I don’t agree with the generally negativity that clerkships don’t give people a chance to trade up in opportunities.

[Anonymous User]

I’m not sure about boutiques, but I disagree that clerkships won’t make a candidate more competitive than they were before the clerkship. Plenty of people from “lesser” law schools (granted, they were near the top/at the top of their class) trade up from regional firms to larger, more prestigious firms after clerkships. It’s just not guaranteed that you’ll go to the most elite boutique in the world off of some clerkships, but I don’t agree with the generally negativity that clerkships don’t give people a chance to trade up in opportunities.

I'm the anon who brought this up, and I don't think I said it doesn't give you any chance to trade up. But I think if you got a clerkship from a "lesser" school you already probably have the qualifications that could get you biglaw out of your school, since they're going to be pretty similar, and that if you somehow got the clerkship without having those qualifications (which can happen), you may struggle.

I do think having a year to network and make a good impression with your work helps a lot; heck, I know two state court of appeals clerks from lower T1s who networked like fiends and ended up getting market-paying biglaw gigs (in a market that didn't even have a lot of market-paying firms). And I know those aren't the same as federal clerkships (I did one so I've seen that experience too). But I'm not convinced it's the magic of simply having the clerkship on your resume, as opposed to having another year to work on getting a job.

Again, it will definitely open some doors that would have otherwise been closed. Some jobs just de facto hire clerks. It definitely provides an opportunity. But I wanted to caution the OP against thinking it's a magic bullet. B/c I've been on this site for way longer than I want to admit, and every cycle there are clerks struggling to get jobs, and every time you drill down it turns out that they are somewhat unlikely clerks who don't have all the conventional achievements on their resume. Someone clerking from Alabama/Kentucky is a little more likely to fall into that category than someone from the T14.

When you combine that with the fact that Susman/Kellogg type of boutiques are extremely competitive, I just don't want the OP to overstate the impact that a clerkship has. Like, all Susman associates have at least one clerkship, many have two; clerking in itself won't make someone stand out.

[Joachim2017]

The answer is no, not really. Those firms will hire the best students from the best schools who then get the best clerkships. On the margins a few people can depart from this norm, but not many, not often, and not in predictable/reliable ways.

[Anonymous User]

I’m not sure about boutiques, but I disagree that clerkships won’t make a candidate more competitive than they were before the clerkship. Plenty of people from “lesser” law schools (granted, they were near the top/at the top of their class) trade up from regional firms to larger, more prestigious firms after clerkships. It’s just not guaranteed that you’ll go to the most elite boutique in the world off of some clerkships, but I don’t agree with the generally negativity that clerkships don’t give people a chance to trade up in opportunities.

I'm the anon who brought this up, and I don't think I said it doesn't give you any chance to trade up. But I think if you got a clerkship from a "lesser" school you already probably have the qualifications that could get you biglaw out of your school, since they're going to be pretty similar, and that if you somehow got the clerkship without having those qualifications (which can happen), you may struggle.

I do think having a year to network and make a good impression with your work helps a lot; heck, I know two state court of appeals clerks from lower T1s who networked like fiends and ended up getting market-paying biglaw gigs (in a market that didn't even have a lot of market-paying firms). And I know those aren't the same as federal clerkships (I did one so I've seen that experience too). But I'm not convinced it's the magic of simply having the clerkship on your resume, as opposed to having another year to work on getting a job.

Again, it will definitely open some doors that would have otherwise been closed. Some jobs just de facto hire clerks. It definitely provides an opportunity. But I wanted to caution the OP against thinking it's a magic bullet. B/c I've been on this site for way longer than I want to admit, and every cycle there are clerks struggling to get jobs, and every time you drill down it turns out that they are somewhat unlikely clerks who don't have all the conventional achievements on their resume. Someone clerking from Alabama/Kentucky is a little more likely to fall into that category than someone from the T14.

When you combine that with the fact that Susman/Kellogg type of boutiques are extremely competitive, I just don't want the OP to overstate the impact that a clerkship has. Like, all Susman associates have at least one clerkship, many have two; clerking in itself won't make someone stand out.

That’s a fair distinction to make from what I interpreted your post to mean. I think it would be pretty foolish to just expect to clerk and have jobs fall into your lap without doing some networking.

[Anonymous User]

The goal is a Susman, Kellogg type lit boutique.
Does going to Alabama or Kentucky on a full ride hurt my chances? (these schools punch way above their weight in clerkship placement: placed 10.9% and 10.5% of their 2021 grads into clerkships, respectively)
Does securing a COA clerkship outshine your law schools' rank? Or does law school prestige genuinely matter to these boutiques?
I have a feeling I could attend UVA, WUSTL, or Vandy on a small scholly if need be.

If ending up at Susman or Kellogg is your goal and you don't want to go into debt to pay for law school, then have a 3.95 GPA, a 175 LSAT score, get a full ride to Columbia, Chicago, NYU, or Penn, and graduate near the top of your class and be on law review.

Easy as pie.

[jdoeman1234567]

The goal is a Susman, Kellogg type lit boutique.
Does going to Alabama or Kentucky on a full ride hurt my chances? (these schools punch way above their weight in clerkship placement: placed 10.9% and 10.5% of their 2021 grads into clerkships, respectively)
Does securing a COA clerkship outshine your law schools' rank? Or does law school prestige genuinely matter to these boutiques?
I have a feeling I could attend UVA, WUSTL, or Vandy on a small scholly if need be.

Your school always matters to some extent when you are just starting your legal career, but if you graduate in the top 5-10% from Bama or Kentucky and get a COA clerkship, you would be a plausible candidate for these firms. However, that is very difficult to accomplish. I also have no idea where the students from schools like Bama and Kentucky end of clerking. How many are getting COA clerkships or competitive Fed districts? A clerkship in the northern district of Alabama probably isn’t moving the needle much for most elite firms

[Anonymous User]

The goal is a Susman, Kellogg type lit boutique.
Does going to Alabama or Kentucky on a full ride hurt my chances? (these schools punch way above their weight in clerkship placement: placed 10.9% and 10.5% of their 2021 grads into clerkships, respectively)
Does securing a COA clerkship outshine your law schools' rank? Or does law school prestige genuinely matter to these boutiques?
I have a feeling I could attend UVA, WUSTL, or Vandy on a small scholly if need be.

Your school always matters to some extent when you are just starting your legal career, but if you graduate in the top 5-10% from Bama or Kentucky and get a COA clerkship, you would be a plausible candidate for these firms. However, that is very difficult to accomplish. I also have no idea where the students from schools like Bama and Kentucky end of clerking. How many are getting COA clerkships or competitive Fed districts? A clerkship in the northern district of Alabama probably isn’t moving the needle much for most elite firms

You will absolutely not be competitive for Susman or Kellogg graduating in the top 5% at Alabama or Kentucky. You may get a look, if you graduate number 1 in the class and you are an impressive #1 student at that. Think feeder clerkship, collecting something like 15 CALI awards, the school raving about you as a one of a kind student. Again, you can look at who they hire on their websites, this is not hidden information.

I'd also wager most of the clerkships Alabama and Kentucky students get are on the state court level. I'll also just repeat again that going to law school out of a misguided sense that Susman and Kellogg should be your goals is a very naive and frankly dumb approach.

[Anonymous User]

Not much to add besides that comments are also forgetting to address that those getting clerkships at Alabama or Kentucky are not just like the top students. A necessary condition is very likely going to be Fed Soc.

[nixy]

The goal is a Susman, Kellogg type lit boutique.
Does going to Alabama or Kentucky on a full ride hurt my chances? (these schools punch way above their weight in clerkship placement: placed 10.9% and 10.5% of their 2021 grads into clerkships, respectively)
Does securing a COA clerkship outshine your law schools' rank? Or does law school prestige genuinely matter to these boutiques?
I have a feeling I could attend UVA, WUSTL, or Vandy on a small scholly if need be.

Your school always matters to some extent when you are just starting your legal career, but if you graduate in the top 5-10% from Bama or Kentucky and get a COA clerkship, you would be a plausible candidate for these firms. However, that is very difficult to accomplish. I also have no idea where the students from schools like Bama and Kentucky end of clerking. How many are getting COA clerkships or competitive Fed districts? A clerkship in the northern district of Alabama probably isn’t moving the needle much for most elite firms

You will absolutely not be competitive for Susman or Kellogg graduating in the top 5% at Alabama or Kentucky. You may get a look, if you graduate number 1 in the class and you are an impressive #1 student at that. Think feeder clerkship, collecting something like 15 CALI awards, the school raving about you as a one of a kind student. Again, you can look at who they hire on their websites, this is not hidden information.

I'd also wager most of the clerkships Alabama and Kentucky students get are on the state court level. I'll also just repeat again that going to law school out of a misguided sense that Susman and Kellogg should be your goals is a very naive and frankly dumb approach.

TBF, the numbers cited for Alabama and Kentucky were for federal clerkships, not all clerkships - they probably feed reasonably well to their region as there aren’t any local T14s (obviously doesn’t mean people from T14s won’t be applying but it does make a difference).

But if you look at Susman at least, it’s clear that the two associates from the lowest ranked schools were both #1 in their class and had multiple clerkships as well as lots of law school accolades. Could the OP be that person? Sure, maybe. But should they pick a school based on that possibility? No, there’s a a 1 in (number of students in the class) chance of it happening and that’s a bad gamble.

OP, if you would be happy with the median outcome from Alabama or Kentucky, then going to one of those schools on a full scholarship is a great option. You might very well end up doing better than median, but you can’t *plan* for that - you can’t plan for being an outlier anywhere. The age-old dilemma for the majority of graduates is whether to take the highest ranking or the highest scholarship. Some people are lucky/good and are getting big scholarships from top schools, but in the context of admissions overall, most people aren’t.

Last comment - I would not pick a school because its clerkship numbers “punch above their weight” unless everything else was absolutely equal. Clerkship numbers are small enough and not predictive enough to give up on other things for a slightly higher number. (It sounds like you might be focused on being in the south but using clerkship numbers to pick Alabama or Kentucky without intending to work in Alabama or Kentucky is not a good strategy.)

[Anonymous User]

Not much to add besides that comments are also forgetting to address that those getting clerkships at Alabama or Kentucky are not just like the top students. A necessary condition is very likely going to be Fed Soc.

I am a relatively recent Kentucky grad (so I can’t speak for Alabama). 10% of my class went into federal clerkships and fed soc is 100% not necessary to get one (I’d say it’s more important for COA though). Basically every student in the top 15% who wants a federal clerkship will get one because most of the Kentucky judges went to UK for law school. They want to hire their own, it’s as simple as that.

Many of my classmates who did the district court clerkships in Kentucky went to BL market paying firms after, but I think Susman would be a HUGE ASK. Can you get a market paying firm to hire you with a flyover clerkship? Absolutely. Will you get into a lit boutique? Probably not.

Lastly I want to say that you can absolutely not depend on this being your outcome because grades are a crap shoot. Just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you’ll be good at law school. If you’re not happy with kentuckys median outcome, don’t go there.

[Anonymous User]

The goal is a Susman, Kellogg type lit boutique.
Does going to Alabama or Kentucky on a full ride hurt my chances? (these schools punch way above their weight in clerkship placement: placed 10.9% and 10.5% of their 2021 grads into clerkships, respectively)
Does securing a COA clerkship outshine your law schools' rank? Or does law school prestige genuinely matter to these boutiques?
I have a feeling I could attend UVA, WUSTL, or Vandy on a small scholly if need be.

No, the leading boutiques aren't going to hire valedictorians of local schools, unless your local school is UMich or something.

I graduated from a T6, and some my classmates who clerked for less desirable circuit courts had to settle for V50s.

You still have to be a strong interviewer and have biglaw experience on top of stellar academic performance at a T14.

[Anonymous User]

The goal is a Susman, Kellogg type lit boutique.
Does going to Alabama or Kentucky on a full ride hurt my chances? (these schools punch way above their weight in clerkship placement: placed 10.9% and 10.5% of their 2021 grads into clerkships, respectively)
Does securing a COA clerkship outshine your law schools' rank? Or does law school prestige genuinely matter to these boutiques?
I have a feeling I could attend UVA, WUSTL, or Vandy on a small scholly if need be.

No, the leading boutiques aren't going to hire valedictorians of local schools, unless your local school is UMich or something.

I graduated from a T6, and some my classmates who clerked for less desirable circuit courts had to settle for V50s.

You still have to be a strong interviewer and have biglaw experience on top of stellar academic performance at a T14.

This is somewhat confusing given that at least at my T6 to be competitive for any circuit straight out of law school you need way higher grades to then a lot of the V10s (Skadden, Latham, and Kirkland will take media) (DPW, Cravath take above median) (S&C takes top 25%). If you're getting a circuit straight out I'd assume you'd have grades in the top 1/4 if not top 1/10 of the class.

[Chokenhauer]

The goal is a Susman, Kellogg type lit boutique.
Does going to Alabama or Kentucky on a full ride hurt my chances? (these schools punch way above their weight in clerkship placement: placed 10.9% and 10.5% of their 2021 grads into clerkships, respectively)
Does securing a COA clerkship outshine your law schools' rank? Or does law school prestige genuinely matter to these boutiques?
I have a feeling I could attend UVA, WUSTL, or Vandy on a small scholly if need be.

No, the leading boutiques aren't going to hire valedictorians of local schools, unless your local school is UMich or something.

I graduated from a T6, and some my classmates who clerked for less desirable circuit courts had to settle for V50s.

You still have to be a strong interviewer and have biglaw experience on top of stellar academic performance at a T14.

Agreed about landing a boutique, but it’s farcical to act like it’s a horror story to have to “settle” for a V50 after *gasp* clerking for a “lesser circuit court.” For many of us lowly peasant circuit clerks who didn’t graduate from T14s, that’s a big step up.

[Anonymous User]

The goal is a Susman, Kellogg type lit boutique.
Does going to Alabama or Kentucky on a full ride hurt my chances? (these schools punch way above their weight in clerkship placement: placed 10.9% and 10.5% of their 2021 grads into clerkships, respectively)
Does securing a COA clerkship outshine your law schools' rank? Or does law school prestige genuinely matter to these boutiques?
I have a feeling I could attend UVA, WUSTL, or Vandy on a small scholly if need be.

No, the leading boutiques aren't going to hire valedictorians of local schools, unless your local school is UMich or something.

I graduated from a T6, and some my classmates who clerked for less desirable circuit courts had to settle for V50s.

You still have to be a strong interviewer and have biglaw experience on top of stellar academic performance at a T14.

This is somewhat confusing given that at least at my T6 to be competitive for any circuit straight out of law school you need way higher grades to then a lot of the V10s (Skadden, Latham, and Kirkland will take media) (DPW, Cravath take above median) (S&C takes top 25%). If you're getting a circuit straight out I'd assume you'd have grades in the top 1/4 if not top 1/10 of the class.

Yeah this is weird

But also nobody cares about Vault for lit, esp outside NYC, just about everyone who works at Jenner lit could be at a V5 if they wanted to. Perfectly possible the people they’re referring to just preferred the firms they went to. And of course many go to firms too small/niche to even be on Vault.

[Anonymous User]

Feel like people are kinda overstating the credentials necessary for Kellogg/Susman/Keker/Kaplan/Etc

Anecdote - but I know of 3 median students who got offers to one of these firms without a COA clerkship (2 of whom aren't clerking at all). I don't know what distinguished them but you definitely do not need to be top of your class + law review + COA to get an offer.

[Anonymous User]

Why is working at one of those two firms your dream? I am a current COA clerk who did a summer at one and would not consider that the dream. If it is, though, UVA would def be your best choice. None of those other schools are going to make it happen.

[Anonymous User]

above
Does going to Alabama or Kentucky on a full ride hurt my chances?

Bama just lost to Vols after beating them 15 consecutive years

On the way off the field a Bama player hit a female Vols fan in the head

It's on video

I think you should prepare a response for this but it's touchy since you don't want to come off as disrespectful to Saban

well PAUL,

[Anonymous User]

Feel like people are kinda overstating the credentials necessary for Kellogg/Susman/Keker/Kaplan/Etc

Anecdote - but I know of 3 median students who got offers to one of these firms without a COA clerkship (2 of whom aren't clerking at all). I don't know what distinguished them but you definitely do not need to be top of your class + law review + COA to get an offer.

Threw Kaplan in there like it’s on the same tier as the others lol but just because there are people that get offers there without COA clerkships doesn’t change the fact that most of the lawyers at those firms have them

[Anonymous User]

Feel like people are kinda overstating the credentials necessary for Kellogg/Susman/Keker/Kaplan/Etc

Anecdote - but I know of 3 median students who got offers to one of these firms without a COA clerkship (2 of whom aren't clerking at all). I don't know what distinguished them but you definitely do not need to be top of your class + law review + COA to get an offer.

Threw Kaplan in there like it’s on the same tier as the others lol but just because there are people that get offers there without COA clerkships doesn’t change the fact that most of the lawyers at those firms have them

Kinda thought it was. The firm is Kellogg though

[Anonymous User]

Feel like people are kinda overstating the credentials necessary for Kellogg/Susman/Keker/Kaplan/Etc

Anecdote - but I know of 3 median students who got offers to one of these firms without a COA clerkship (2 of whom aren't clerking at all). I don't know what distinguished them but you definitely do not need to be top of your class + law review + COA to get an offer.

Threw Kaplan in there like it’s on the same tier as the others lol but just because there are people that get offers there without COA clerkships doesn’t change the fact that most of the lawyers at those firms have them

Kaplan is on this tier imo. The selectivity of all of the elite boutiques can be overstated, the ones that are successful have grown. Like Bartlit Beck is probably still the most selective decent-sized firm in the country but with all of its MDL work it's significantly bigger than it used to be.