Judges hiring for same year? Forum

[Anonymous User]

2L here. Recently got on Oscar, and I've noticed that some judges seem to hire way later than I knew (ie, they post hiring and interviewing in February or March of 2023 for a clerkship beginning in fall 2023, and they're not new and not specifically looking for people with work experience). What is the explanation for this—why would they not hire earlier?

[Anonymous User]

Some judges will want to see more grades from candidates. Some judges probably don’t see the point in hiring earlier if they consistently get a pool of candidates that they like. Some judges probably disagree on principle with a lot of the pressure that hiring earlier puts on candidates, especially if they have hired primarily under a clerkship plan where there’s a feeding frenzy when the interview period opens.

Keep in mind that hiring like 12-18 months out for a job is kind of weird and it’s judges, OCI, and honors programs that are out of sync with standard hiring practices. I think the general logic is that these processes are competitive enough that these employers want to snag the best candidates early. But that made more sense when the job market wasn’t so oversaturated that employers are pretty much guaranteed awesome candidates. There isn’t really any logic to hiring so early and it only really works for fields where employers know how many people they need to hire every year (itself a strange concept in most industries). Like a judge is always going to need the same number of clerks but even firms get screwed sometimes when they do OCI hiring during a boom time and then work dries up by the time those associates start working.

(Or to flip it around - why should they hire earlier? What’s the advantage?)

[Anonymous User]

Some judges will want to see more grades from candidates. Some judges probably don’t see the point in hiring earlier if they consistently get a pool of candidates that they like. Some judges probably disagree on principle with a lot of the pressure that hiring earlier puts on candidates, especially if they have hired primarily under a clerkship plan where there’s a feeding frenzy when the interview period opens.

Keep in mind that hiring like 12-18 months out for a job is kind of weird and it’s judges, OCI, and honors programs that are out of sync with standard hiring practices. I think the general logic is that these processes are competitive enough that these employers want to snag the best candidates early. But that made more sense when the job market wasn’t so oversaturated that employers are pretty much guaranteed awesome candidates. There isn’t really any logic to hiring so early and it only really works for fields where employers know how many people they need to hire every year (itself a strange concept in most industries). Like a judge is always going to need the same number of clerks but even firms get screwed sometimes when they do OCI hiring during a boom time and then work dries up by the time those associates start working.

(Or to flip it around - why should they hire earlier? What’s the advantage?)

In a vacuum, yes, but the question is why they deviate from their colleagues. And of course, the issue of knowing need does not apply. Are so many students really ready to change their postgrad plans with less than 6 mo. notice when the clerkship feeding frenzy is long over?

[Anonymous User]

They deviate from their colleagues because they’re different people. Clerkship hiring is determined basically by each individual judge’s preferences and when to hire is merely one of the many ways that different judges handle hiring differently. I’d bet the biggest reason is that such a judge had to rehire once because an earlier-hired clerk bailed, and just stuck with that schedule going forward (I can see this happening to judges in less “desirable” locales).

In any case, it’s a pretty small number who hire *that* late. There are definitely more who wait till the plan hiring has died down (and of course more who hire well before the plan), but not a lot who are going to hire in March for the same year. It’s not really any different from any of the other things that individual judges deviate from their colleagues about, it just sticks out more because it’s obvious to the applicant, whereas other individual quirks might not be.

[Anonymous User]

Are so many students really ready to change their postgrad plans with less than 6 mo. notice when the clerkship feeding frenzy is long over?

I mean, maybe they dont want to hire students, but practicing lawyers. And there are tons of practicing lawyers who are willing to change jobs with 6 mos (or less) notice. It's pretty much industry standard. As an attorney, I would be much more willing to jump to a gov't position (clerk or otherwise) if they said, "you can start in 3 months," than if they said, "you can start in 2 years".

[Penn3141]

Any examples of these? Especially COA. Late to apply and wondering if I might be able to swing a job for the fall

[Anonymous User]

Any examples of these? Especially COA. Late to apply and wondering if I might be able to swing a job for the fall

Look at newly confirmed judges, who tend to need people to start a few weeks after their confirmation. Send your materials to their current business address when they get voted out of committee (usually a month or so before their confirmation).

Otherwise, it's just a handful of outliers who hire this late. Judge Rawlinson in Las Vegas is one of them.

[Anonymous User]

Any examples of these? Especially COA. Late to apply and wondering if I might be able to swing a job for the fall

You should be able to use the search features in OSCAR if you have COA grades at Penn.