Total Failure - Advice & Next Steps Forum

[Anonymous User]

Weird to disclose how many profs you RA'd for and not the transfer status asking for explanations here

[Anonymous User]

Weird to disclose how many profs you RA'd for and not the transfer status asking for explanations here

Really just mentioned profs to indicate that I had a relationship with the people who wrote my LOR. Clerkship office had said transfer status didn't really matter if you have done well at new school so I figured it didn't really matter. I was obviously wrong!

[Anonymous User]

OP, if you still check this thread, were you able to secure a clerkship during 3L spring?

[Anonymous User]

Sorry to hear about this. A little shocked by this as a true straight P/P-equivalent student at HYSCC who was fortunate enough to receive 2/9/DC and SDNY/EDNY/DDC/NDCal clerkships for upcoming cycles (non-FedSoc, non-URM). Really hoping you strike gold soon!

Happy to share what worked for me for general posterity:

(1) Tailor your cover letters. I really took a hard look at my resume and made sure to make the last paragraph of each cover letter include at least two sentences on why I wanted to clerk in that court and with that judge, relating back to my resume all the while.

(2) Form excellent relationships with your recommenders that are natural (e.g. not going to office hours unless you have decent questions). I also was very clear with my recommenders on my career goals and wrote each of them what was effectively a single-spaced page on why I wanted to clerk, my time in law school, my favorite classes, etc. In addition, I had a sit-down conversation with each of them where they recommended judges for me to apply for. This definitely helped my LORs. At least at my school, writing that page is highly encouraged.

(3) Be comfortable with working for at least one or two years out. The number of judges that you can apply to/who will take a look at your application increases the more time you have out of law school.

(4) Perhaps focus on district courts first. If you do, poll around to see if there is a district court judge you're applying to who is known for mentoring/placing. I was very deliberate in applying to district judges that my clerkship office told me would be open to place me with an appellate judge immediately after finishing my clerkship with them. That proved to be a successful strategy as I found a judge who was willing to work with me on tailoring appellate applications.

(5) Emphasize your writing abilities. The judges I'm now clerking for said that was one thing they appreciated about my application; unsure how much one can extrapolate from that, but I remember I dedicated at least a paragraph of my cover letter to my love of writing, how law school helped my writing, and how I hoped working for a judge could change my writing to be a better advocate. To be fair, I was on a high position on my school's LR (which indisputably helped).

(6) As a corollary to (5), send in a killer writing sample. I used a sample "opinion" I wrote for a class written in the style of an appellate judge, and that weirdly seemed to work well. And I made sure that that thing was absolutely free of any typos.

I think a common issue with this forum is that people seem to think that grades are the end all be all. I think that's certainly true to an extent. But if my experience is any indication, softs are really what takes your name out of the pool. In sum, I think what differentiated my applications, based on what my judges have told me and what I know, is that I (1) wrote detailed cover letters, (2) emphasized my writing skills, and (3) made sure my professors knew me as a human.

Hope this helps! Sending good energy your way.

[Anonymous User]

OP, if you still check this thread, were you able to secure a clerkship during 3L spring?

Hi, OP here!

I ended up deciding to put off clerking until I practice for a few years! Seems like the economic headwinds have increased the risk that last minute clerks will not be hired back and also the current post-clerk hiring market looks pretty awful. Talked to CSO and, despite having every institutional incentive to push clerkships, they were pretty much like "this hiring market sucks and firms are looking for excuses, consider a clerkship an exit from your firm." I have loans and do not feel comfortable risking that right now, so later it is!

[axiomaticapiary]

This “consider a clerkship an exit” stuff is really wigging me out. Should I not even be applying on plan? I don’t get why federal clerkships are so hard to get, they only take people with awesome grades and resumes, but then you wouldn’t even be able to reenter your own firm (or biglaw at all) after. I thought it was like a great credential that would help a litigator in the future, not something that would damage your career.

[Anonymous User]

At the risk of stating the obvious, I think your career office might be giving you good general advice, but the impact of a clerkship on your career is quite firm-specific. At the DC office of my firm (and other firms) it would be pretty unthinkable to not take someone back who left to go clerk for a year. They've even been very flexible about some of the tough scheduling that's emerged as a byproduct of the Plan (i.e., one-year stints of firm->clerk->firm->clerk->firm). As with all general advice, do some digging around your particular firm to see if they haven't taken returning clerks, and for what reasons.

[Anonymous User]

The doom and gloom about post-clerkship hiring is overstated. Yes, we're not in a boom cycle. But someone near Magna at HLS coming off a clerkship with a T5 firm on their resume is not going to strike out of big law. Which isn't to say OP is wrong to delay. But it's not THAT bad out there.

[Anonymous User]

This “consider a clerkship an exit” stuff is really wigging me out. Should I not even be applying on plan? I don’t get why federal clerkships are so hard to get, they only take people with awesome grades and resumes, but then you wouldn’t even be able to reenter your own firm (or biglaw at all) after. I thought it was like a great credential that would help a litigator in the future, not something that would damage your career.

OP here again.

The advice was very economy specific. The rationale was basically "firms have been firing associates and are looking for excuses to cut associates right now, don't give them an excuse."

Agree it is also pretty firm dependent - would feel a lot more worried about doing it at a Cooley than at a Cravath. Also agree that I would probably be fine because of academic profile and shit, but I like the firm I was at and don't wanna risk having to give that up as a starting place. I'm admittedly pretty risk averse and have loans so the waiting is perfectly fine with me.

Don't really think this should affect your calculus for applying on plan this year. Economic condition and hiring market are going to look a lot different when you are coming out of a clerkship in 2025. Analysts seem to be predicting that interest rates will fall to somewhere around 3.25-3.5% by 2024, which will probably lead firms to cut back on the austerity measures

[Anonymous User]

This “consider a clerkship an exit” stuff is really wigging me out. Should I not even be applying on plan? I don’t get why federal clerkships are so hard to get, they only take people with awesome grades and resumes, but then you wouldn’t even be able to reenter your own firm (or biglaw at all) after. I thought it was like a great credential that would help a litigator in the future, not something that would damage your career.

95% of people get taken back, there’s a reason not doing it brings outrage. And a lot of the “best” lit jobs won’t even look at you without a clerkship.