Drug Testing During Clerkship Forum

[Anonymous User]

What're the chances of getting drug tested during a clerkship? A friend has been clerking since this summer and hasn't gotten tested yet. Now they're wondering if there's any real likelihood they get tested during the remainder of their year....they would abstain but have insomnia that traditional meds/therapies haven't helped, and a certain state-legal drug has aided them in the past. My friend is guessing if they were going to be tested, it would have already happened?

TY

[comingoffalittleshy]

Knowingly violate fed law.
And be a clerk?
Why?

[Anonymous User]

It's very unlikely. In order to work on some sensitive cases, it's possible you would have to undergo a background check that would include questions about your drug use. But you probably wouldn't be drug tested.

[Anonymous User]

I don’t know anyone who’s been drug tested for a clerkship, at the start of during. I’d be really surprised if a clerkship drug-tested, unless as noted above you got a national security case. My chambers had one and actually I do think the people working on it were drug tested. (I didn’t get tested because my co-clerk was a career clerk so the decision was for them to work on the case/get the clearance because I’d be leaving before the case would end.)

[Anonymous User]

The clearance process and procedures are a major pain in the ass. Going through it for the sake of a law clerk who is only there for one year, to deal with a single national security case, would be bizarre and borderline nonsensical. Either way, you're going to know that you are being put up for that security clearance, and only then should you start to wonder whether you will get randomly drug tested. (You will. But you will also be forced under penalty of perjury to disclose all narcotics use during the last 7 years yada yada.)

[Anonymous User]

The clearance process and procedures are a major pain in the ass. Going through it for the sake of a law clerk who is only there for one year, to deal with a single national security case, would be bizarre and borderline nonsensical. Either way, you're going to know that you are being put up for that security clearance, and only then should you start to wonder whether you will get randomly drug tested. (You will. But you will also be forced under penalty of perjury to disclose all narcotics use during the last 7 years yada yada.)

Yes, absolutely. If all the clerks are going to be leaving in a year and there isn’t anyone else presumably someone will have to go through it, but it’s not going to be common.

[Anonymous User]

The clearance process and procedures are a major pain in the ass. Going through it for the sake of a law clerk who is only there for one year, to deal with a single national security case, would be bizarre and borderline nonsensical. Either way, you're going to know that you are being put up for that security clearance, and only then should you start to wonder whether you will get randomly drug tested. (You will. But you will also be forced under penalty of perjury to disclose all narcotics use during the last 7 years yada yada.)

Yes, absolutely. If all the clerks are going to be leaving in a year and there isn’t anyone else presumably someone will have to go through it, but it’s not going to be common.

Clearances can also take about a year to complete, so I'll speculate that this has never actually happened. The feds can get you an interim clearance within a few months, if your clearance forms and background are perfect, but an interim clearance will still not give you national security credentials. It just allows you to start work, while still keeping classified materials away from you. The full-blown clearance takes a year or more.

If a judge has national security clearance and there is a need to review a case involving classified information, they would likely pair him or her up with a career law clerk who also already has a clearance (I assume there are many who work for the FISA judges).

[Anonymous User]

What're the chances of getting drug tested during a clerkship? A friend has been clerking since this summer and hasn't gotten tested yet. Now they're wondering if there's any real likelihood they get tested during the remainder of their year....they would abstain but have insomnia that traditional meds/therapies haven't helped, and a certain state-legal drug has aided them in the past. My friend is guessing if they were going to be tested, it would have already happened?

TY

I am a clerk w/ a clearance who works on sensitive cases in a district that handles sensitive cases. I've never even heard of this. I'll note for other commenters that the FISC is an entirely different court with an entirely separate staff of legal folks.

I can't speak to other districts, but for the above commenter, that's not how it works in my district.

[Anonymous User]

In response to some of the skepticism on here, one of my coclerks had to get a high-level (TS-SCI) clearance to work on a case with national security implications (and yes, it took forever, so long that he basically didn't end up doing any work on the case and the judge just did it all themselves). So yes this happens sometimes but I'm sure it's rare, especially outside of SD/EDNY and EDVA.

[Anonymous User]

In response to some of the skepticism on here, one of my coclerks had to get a high-level (TS-SCI) clearance to work on a case with national security implications (and yes, it took forever, so long that he basically didn't end up doing any work on the case and the judge just did it all themselves). So yes this happens sometimes but I'm sure it's rare, especially outside of SD/EDNY and EDVA.

Maybe different, but I clerked for judge who had to deal with classified stuff and whenever that happened they like pulled from a pool of specialty clerks (although I guess not technically clerks and more like staff then?) to help them. We weren't involved.

[Anonymous User]

In response to some of the skepticism on here, one of my coclerks had to get a high-level (TS-SCI) clearance to work on a case with national security implications (and yes, it took forever, so long that he basically didn't end up doing any work on the case and the judge just did it all themselves). So yes this happens sometimes but I'm sure it's rare, especially outside of SD/EDNY and EDVA.

Maybe different, but I clerked for judge who had to deal with classified stuff and whenever that happened they like pulled from a pool of specialty clerks (although I guess not technically clerks and more like staff then?) to help them. We weren't involved.

Not sure if this is what you’re referring to but I believe this is how the FISA judges work.

[Anonymous User]

In response to some of the skepticism on here, one of my coclerks had to get a high-level (TS-SCI) clearance to work on a case with national security implications (and yes, it took forever, so long that he basically didn't end up doing any work on the case and the judge just did it all themselves). So yes this happens sometimes but I'm sure it's rare, especially outside of SD/EDNY and EDVA.

I'm an AUSA who had to get a secret level clearance (all AUSAs do), and this comment is perfectly in line with what I would expect. Top secret/SCI clearances are even more of a pain in the ass than secret level, mainly because they additionally require you to be polygraphed. Since polygraphs are very close to being a bunch of junk science mumbo jumbo (but it's still the best that we can do to weed out risky applicants), a lot of qualified applicants get weeded out for random and unfair reasons. So it's a dice roll. All of which is to say that you can subject a law clerk to the top secret/SCI clearance process, spend up to a year working on that process, and then he or she can still fail and get denied because they failed the poly dice roll.

This all adds up to a major pain in the ass and hassle to get a law clerk top secret clearance. So if you're a one-year or even two-year law clerk, it would be really weird for your judge or the judiciary to decide that you are worth that hassle.

[Anonymous User]

In response to some of the skepticism on here, one of my coclerks had to get a high-level (TS-SCI) clearance to work on a case with national security implications (and yes, it took forever, so long that he basically didn't end up doing any work on the case and the judge just did it all themselves). So yes this happens sometimes but I'm sure it's rare, especially outside of SD/EDNY and EDVA.

I'm an AUSA who had to get a secret level clearance (all AUSAs do), and this comment is perfectly in line with what I would expect. Top secret/SCI clearances are even more of a pain in the ass than secret level, mainly because they additionally require you to be polygraphed. Since polygraphs are very close to being a bunch of junk science mumbo jumbo (but it's still the best that we can do to weed out risky applicants), a lot of qualified applicants get weeded out for random and unfair reasons. So it's a dice roll. All of which is to say that you can subject a law clerk to the top secret/SCI clearance process, spend up to a year working on that process, and then he or she can still fail and get denied because they failed the poly dice roll.

This all adds up to a major pain in the ass and hassle to get a law clerk top secret clearance. So if you're a one-year or even two-year law clerk, it would be really weird for your judge or the judiciary to decide that you are worth that hassle.

anon clerk with a clearance from above. much of this is incorrect. various agencies require a polygraph for employees to maintain TS//SCI, eg the fbi. the judiciary does not. for further reading on how clerks are involved in cases with classified material, the federal judicial center puts out a manual on case management issues for national security cases. the most recent edition is from this year, 2022. it's available on westlaw. here's a link to the 2010 edition https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files ... 0222_0.pdf

[Anonymous User]

In response to some of the skepticism on here, one of my coclerks had to get a high-level (TS-SCI) clearance to work on a case with national security implications (and yes, it took forever, so long that he basically didn't end up doing any work on the case and the judge just did it all themselves). So yes this happens sometimes but I'm sure it's rare, especially outside of SD/EDNY and EDVA.

I'm an AUSA who had to get a secret level clearance (all AUSAs do), and this comment is perfectly in line with what I would expect. Top secret/SCI clearances are even more of a pain in the ass than secret level, mainly because they additionally require you to be polygraphed. Since polygraphs are very close to being a bunch of junk science mumbo jumbo (but it's still the best that we can do to weed out risky applicants), a lot of qualified applicants get weeded out for random and unfair reasons. So it's a dice roll. All of which is to say that you can subject a law clerk to the top secret/SCI clearance process, spend up to a year working on that process, and then he or she can still fail and get denied because they failed the poly dice roll.

This all adds up to a major pain in the ass and hassle to get a law clerk top secret clearance. So if you're a one-year or even two-year law clerk, it would be really weird for your judge or the judiciary to decide that you are worth that hassle.

anon clerk with a clearance from above. much of this is incorrect. various agencies require a polygraph for employees to maintain TS//SCI, eg the fbi. the judiciary does not. for further reading on how clerks are involved in cases with classified material, the federal judicial center puts out a manual on case management issues for national security cases. the most recent edition is from this year, 2022. it's available on westlaw. here's a link to the 2010 edition https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files ... 0222_0.pdf

Not sure how a 276 page PDF furthers your point. If your point is that the judiciary does not use a polygraph to issue a top secret/SCI clearance to career law clerks, ok, I believe you. It still takes a huge amount of time to complete the process. And as far as polygraphs go the judiciary could change its mind (or be forced to change its mind) tomorrow on the drop of a hat.

Either way, a limited-term law clerk is probably not going to get randomly drug tested.

[Anonymous User]

What're the chances of getting drug tested during a clerkship? A friend has been clerking since this summer and hasn't gotten tested yet. Now they're wondering if there's any real likelihood they get tested during the remainder of their year....they would abstain but have insomnia that traditional meds/therapies haven't helped, and a certain state-legal drug has aided them in the past. My friend is guessing if they were going to be tested, it would have already happened?

TY

Can confirm that the District of Arizona has clerks take a drug screen as part of the onboarding process, but my understanding is that's it for the duration of the clerkship. They advertise this fact in PDF job postings, but not on OSCAR.