What Worked For Me (Appellate/District, Median) Forum

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What Worked For Me (Appellate/District, Median)

Post by Anonymous User » Wed May 17, 2023 10:35 pm

Hi!

Have been lurking around here for a while and figured I might share my clerkship application experience for posterity, given how unusual it has been. My hope is that my experience might at least dispel some of the tendencies in this forum to view grades as the end all be all (though they certainly do matter a ton) and give some of the median kids on here some hope.

For context, I'm at HYSCCN, LR, non-FedSoc, non-URM. Doing litigation at a biglaw firm in a major metro area before clerking in SDNY/EDNY/DDC/NDCal etc. and then clerking in 2/9/DC. I basically got P/P-equivalent throughout law school with only a single H/H-equivalent grade, lol. So I was incredibly shocked to receive multiple interviews last cycle and during this year.

As a preface, a lot of this is absolute luck. No getting around that. Judges seem to receive thousands of applications from people with great grades, etc. and so getting great grades doesn't seem to be special. I knew I was in the middle of the pack in law school very early on but still wanted a clerkship, and so this is what I did. Goes without saying that this might not work for everyone, but it worked for me.

(1) Tailor your cover letters. I wrote a form cover letter for every judge but made sure to end every cover letter with at least two sentences on why I wanted to clerk for that Judge. For the judges I cared about, I made sure to talk to clerks beforehand and used our clerkship office as a resource for that. When talking to clerks, I deliberately avoided asking any questions about the interview or the application and instead just had a pretty nice conversation--I tried to avoid being networky, I guess. Making sure I knew what the judges' "vibes" were before applying consequently really helped tailor the language and experiences I put in my cover letter. To that end, I eschewed the typical cover letter formula and instead opted to kind of just tell my life story and relate that back to why clerking would be a good idea for me and my life plans.

(2) Form good relationships with your recommenders prior to applying. This is super hard to do and it's easier said than done. But I realized quickly that if there was a professor who seemed to like me, by god I'd stick with them. I was never an office-hours guy, but I made sure to ask questions when I thought they were interesting/sometimes I emailed professors with questions I had about an academic article I read/something I saw on the news, and I guess they liked that. Basically, I treated my professors like a resource to ask questions beyond the class material (assuming, of course, that I got the feeling that they were the kind of professor to like that sort of engagement).

I then made sure to deliberately ask professors who I knew were known for writing good recs. I asked 3Ls about who they'd heard could write a good one, and if I had a preexisting relationship with them, I asked those professors. I also made sure to ask professors who had supervised my writing. This meant that I ended up asking a professor who gave me my worst grade in law school, haha, but I guess it worked out.

After asking professors to write letters, I sent them my application packet in a folder. That packet included the standard resume, cover letter, undergrad transcript, transcript, etc. The packet also included a one-page single-spaced letter on why I wanted to clerk, my life goals, some fun things I do extracurricularly, and a bit about my life prior to law school. Additionally, I asked each professor if I could have a sit-down convo with them about clerking. For professors who were well-connected, this was pretty easy, as they immediately started talking strategy and recommended judges for me to apply.

(3) Be comfortable with the idea of not clerking immediately out of law school. I was rightly told that my application would look a lot better if I had one year of work experience, and that was true.

(4) If your grades are lower, consider strategically applying to district court judges with a reputation for mentoring. I selected my district court judge in part because I knew they were very interested in connecting their clerks to appellate opportunities, and they immediately began strategizing the appellate application process with me. This was super helpful and reduced my stress by quite a significant margin.

(5) Emphasize your writing abilities in your clerkship application. This can be done through two mechanisms.

First, submit a perfect writing sample. I knew my grades were shit and so I worked my ass off on my writing sample. I also submitted a Hail Mary sample by submitting the equivalent of a draft appellate opinion that I wrote for one of my classes, and that proved pretty successful; my judges, and other judges I interviewed with, were intrigued by how unusual it was. Again, anything you can do within reason to get your name out of the pile.

Second, emphasize your writing abilities in your cover letter. I made a point to discuss not only my work on LR but also what writing skills I wanted to improve on while clerking. Both of my judges discussed my writing extensively during my interview and I think that's because I primed them well.

Hope this helps! For all you median kids out there--there's hope! Don't let anyone preclude you from applying wherever, and screw "chance me"s -- put your name out there, take a deep breath, and see what happens!

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Re: What Worked For Me (Appellate/District, Median)

Post by Anonymous User » Thu May 18, 2023 5:04 pm

Not to be a dick, but I think what worked for you was that you were on law review at Yale, Stanford, or Harvard (those are the only schools that do H/P grading in your list)

I'm a 3L at HLS and every single person I know that was on HLR and wanted to clerk was able to secure an appellate clerkship

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Re: What Worked For Me (Appellate/District, Median)

Post by Anonymous User » Thu May 18, 2023 5:27 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Thu May 18, 2023 5:04 pm
Not to be a dick, but I think what worked for you was that you were on law review at Yale, Stanford, or Harvard (those are the only schools that do H/P grading in your list)

I'm a 3L at HLS and every single person I know that was on HLR and wanted to clerk was able to secure an appellate clerkship
Yeah, this isn't bad advice, but "Be on one of YLJ, HLR, or SLR" was the #1 most helpful strategy for OP, adn that's not something that will apply to most "median" folks reading this.

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Re: What Worked For Me (Appellate/District, Median)

Post by Anonymous User » Thu May 18, 2023 7:17 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Thu May 18, 2023 5:27 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Thu May 18, 2023 5:04 pm
Not to be a dick, but I think what worked for you was that you were on law review at Yale, Stanford, or Harvard (those are the only schools that do H/P grading in your list)

I'm a 3L at HLS and every single person I know that was on HLR and wanted to clerk was able to secure an appellate clerkship
Yeah, this isn't bad advice, but "Be on one of YLJ, HLR, or SLR" was the #1 most helpful strategy for OP, adn that's not something that will apply to most "median" folks reading this.
Also, waiting to get experience helps quite a a bit too (on top of the very good point above).

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Re: What Worked For Me (Appellate/District, Median)

Post by Anonymous User » Thu May 18, 2023 8:27 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Thu May 18, 2023 5:04 pm
Not to be a dick, but I think what worked for you was that you were on law review at Yale, Stanford, or Harvard (those are the only schools that do H/P grading in your list)

I'm a 3L at HLS and every single person I know that was on HLR and wanted to clerk was able to secure an appellate clerkship
I don’t think LR drives clerkship hiring very much anymore. Though of course it depends on the judge.

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Anonymous User
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Re: What Worked For Me (Appellate/District, Median)

Post by Anonymous User » Thu May 18, 2023 8:50 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Thu May 18, 2023 8:27 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Thu May 18, 2023 5:04 pm
Not to be a dick, but I think what worked for you was that you were on law review at Yale, Stanford, or Harvard (those are the only schools that do H/P grading in your list)

I'm a 3L at HLS and every single person I know that was on HLR and wanted to clerk was able to secure an appellate clerkship
I don’t think LR drives clerkship hiring very much anymore. Though of course it depends on the judge.
It's maybe not as determinative as it once was, but it carries significant weight with on-plan judges. Honestly, the JLPP + HLR people do better than the JLPP only people

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Re: What Worked For Me (Appellate/District, Median)

Post by Anonymous User » Thu May 18, 2023 11:18 pm

One more data point. I am also median at HYS, but no law review. Landed successive district and appellate clerkships after a few years in BigLaw, although mine are not as fancy as OP's. I think my writing sample (also a judicial opinion), targeted cover letters (where applicable) and work experience helped me a lot, especially with circuit judges once I landed a district court gig. I did not work my recommenders/mentors like OP did but still got independent attention from judges on 2/9. I struck out during 2L, so was very pleasantly surprised at how much more attention my app received after some work experience under my belt.

My $0.02!

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Re: What Worked For Me (Appellate/District, Median)

Post by Anonymous User » Fri May 19, 2023 10:14 am

Anonymous User wrote:
Thu May 18, 2023 8:50 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Thu May 18, 2023 8:27 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Thu May 18, 2023 5:04 pm
Not to be a dick, but I think what worked for you was that you were on law review at Yale, Stanford, or Harvard (those are the only schools that do H/P grading in your list)

I'm a 3L at HLS and every single person I know that was on HLR and wanted to clerk was able to secure an appellate clerkship
I don’t think LR drives clerkship hiring very much anymore. Though of course it depends on the judge.
It's maybe not as determinative as it once was, but it carries significant weight with on-plan judges. Honestly, the JLPP + HLR people do better than the JLPP only people
I'd say about 1/3 of judges do not care at all about LR, many in this bucket are conservatives but certainly not all of them. Multiple federal judges have explicitly told me they do not care about LR anymore. Many of my friends have been told the same thing or instructed to disregard it entirely during the application filtering process.

At some of the top schools LR selection is completely untethered from grades and any real writing competition. If journals consistently exclude top students who are exceptional writers, pretty soon the majority of judges are just not going to care at all. It's hard to take LR seriously after you get non-LR applications from literal award winning journalists with pristine writing samples and magna grades.

However, about 1/3 still care a lot or require it so LR still obviously matters if you are applying broadly.

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Re: What Worked For Me (Appellate/District, Median)

Post by Anonymous User » Fri May 19, 2023 2:01 pm

Doing litigation at a biglaw firm in a major metro area before clerking
you could have stopped here

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Re: What Worked For Me (Appellate/District, Median)

Post by moxcoal » Sun May 21, 2023 11:20 pm

Thanks for taking the time to compile this :) I think there’s something to the observation that HYS + law journal/review helped (almost certainly in terms of getting a “major” district and circuit), but I had most of everything else you listed (below median even) at a lower T14 and double clerked too. What I’d say to anyone is go for it if you want it. I wouldn’t have applied in the first place until a professor insisted that I try. Luckily the school clerkship office didn’t turn me away either

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Re: What Worked For Me (Appellate/District, Median)

Post by jotarokujo » Mon May 22, 2023 11:29 am

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri May 19, 2023 2:01 pm
Doing litigation at a biglaw firm in a major metro area before clerking
you could have stopped here
well no because that's not sufficient to get an art. iii clerkship

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