Is second clerkship worth it for public interest? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I’m currently clerking for a federal district court judge, and was planning to do a 2-year public interest fellowship or try to land one of the few full-time staff attorney positions at a nonprofit starting next fall. I so far have not been able to secure outside funding for a fellowship (Skadden, EJW, etc.), and am now considering doing a 1-year fellowship funded by my law school and trying to find a 2025 federal appellate clerkship. It seems like a lot of the advice for pursuing a 2nd clerkship is tailored towards BigLaw, so I’m wondering what the professional benefits of another clerkship might be for someone pursuing a public interest career?

I understand that there are personal benefits such as improving writing skills, but I’m specifically wondering if my job prospects for PI positions would materially improve coming off the 2nd clerkship if I was able to get one. If it helps, I’m hoping to do impact litigation work in a major market (DC or NY).

[Anonymous User]

For the impact litigation orgs like the ACLU, I think clerking twice does help simply because those positions are so competitive - for example, a lot of the folks at the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project did clerk twice: https://www.aclu.org/documents/about-im ... ts-project. In contrast, if you wanted to be a trial-level federal defender (and not an appellate federal defender), I think the appellate clerkship would be less helpful.

Also, I think clerking for a judge who has a PI background could be helpful in your case both in terms of the resume boost and the judge's public-interest network. You might be a good fit for a lot of the Biden appointees - perhaps Rikelman on CA1, Perez/Robinson on CA2, Bloomekatz on CA6, Jackson-Akiwumi on CA7, Sung/H. Thomas/Desai on CA9, etc. Also, the newly confirmed appellate judges are often looking for clerks with some experience and might not have hired for 2024 yet (Federico, a federal defender, was just confirmed to CA10 yesterday, and Kolar will probably be confirmed to CA7 soon).

And EJW hiring isn't done yet, so you still have a chance of getting that too! So don't feel like you absolutely need to clerk again, but since there's no pay cut for clerking compared to PI, I don't think there are many downsides to doing a federal appellate clerkship if that's something that interests you.

[lavarman84]

I’m currently clerking for a federal district court judge, and was planning to do a 2-year public interest fellowship or try to land one of the few full-time staff attorney positions at a nonprofit starting next fall. I so far have not been able to secure outside funding for a fellowship (Skadden, EJW, etc.), and am now considering doing a 1-year fellowship funded by my law school and trying to find a 2025 federal appellate clerkship. It seems like a lot of the advice for pursuing a 2nd clerkship is tailored towards BigLaw, so I’m wondering what the professional benefits of another clerkship might be for someone pursuing a public interest career?

I understand that there are personal benefits such as improving writing skills, but I’m specifically wondering if my job prospects for PI positions would materially improve coming off the 2nd clerkship if I was able to get one. If it helps, I’m hoping to do impact litigation work in a major market (DC or NY).

It won't hurt. It's another gold star, and they matter in the impact lit world. That said, your fellowship could end up being more important if you'll be doing impact lit. If you impress the right people, it's a lot easier to get your foot in the door, particularly if you have strong credentials. Having somebody in the "club" who has a good reputation and will vouch for you goes a long way.

[Anonymous User]

Yes, it's worth it.

[Anonymous User]

For the impact litigation orgs like the ACLU, I think clerking twice does help simply because those positions are so competitive - for example, a lot of the folks at the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project did clerk twice: https://www.aclu.org/documents/about-im ... ts-project. In contrast, if you wanted to be a trial-level federal defender (and not an appellate federal defender), I think the appellate clerkship would be less helpful.

Also, I think clerking for a judge who has a PI background could be helpful in your case both in terms of the resume boost and the judge's public-interest network. You might be a good fit for a lot of the Biden appointees - perhaps Rikelman on CA1, Perez/Robinson on CA2, Bloomekatz on CA6, Jackson-Akiwumi on CA7, Sung/H. Thomas/Desai on CA9, etc. Also, the newly confirmed appellate judges are often looking for clerks with some experience and might not have hired for 2024 yet (Federico, a federal defender, was just confirmed to CA10 yesterday, and Kolar will probably be confirmed to CA7 soon).

And EJW hiring isn't done yet, so you still have a chance of getting that too! So don't feel like you absolutely need to clerk again, but since there's no pay cut for clerking compared to PI, I don't think there are many downsides to doing a federal appellate clerkship if that's something that interests you.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for EJW but the wait is tough. And I didn't think about the clerking for a PI judge angle, thanks for the suggestions!

[Anonymous User]

I’m currently clerking for a federal district court judge, and was planning to do a 2-year public interest fellowship or try to land one of the few full-time staff attorney positions at a nonprofit starting next fall. I so far have not been able to secure outside funding for a fellowship (Skadden, EJW, etc.), and am now considering doing a 1-year fellowship funded by my law school and trying to find a 2025 federal appellate clerkship. It seems like a lot of the advice for pursuing a 2nd clerkship is tailored towards BigLaw, so I’m wondering what the professional benefits of another clerkship might be for someone pursuing a public interest career?

I understand that there are personal benefits such as improving writing skills, but I’m specifically wondering if my job prospects for PI positions would materially improve coming off the 2nd clerkship if I was able to get one. If it helps, I’m hoping to do impact litigation work in a major market (DC or NY).

It won't hurt. It's another gold star, and they matter in the impact lit world. That said, your fellowship could end up being more important if you'll be doing impact lit. If you impress the right people, it's a lot easier to get your foot in the door, particularly if you have strong credentials. Having somebody in the "club" who has a good reputation and will vouch for you goes a long way.

That's sort of what I'm worried about, that I'll spend another year clerking or spend time pursuing a clerkship when it might actually be more beneficial to get started in the public interest field even if I'm not doing the exact work I hope to do. Plus I went to law school outside of my target legal market and I feel like I didn't network with folks in my desired field as much as I should have, but never too late to start I suppose!

[lavarman84]

I’m currently clerking for a federal district court judge, and was planning to do a 2-year public interest fellowship or try to land one of the few full-time staff attorney positions at a nonprofit starting next fall. I so far have not been able to secure outside funding for a fellowship (Skadden, EJW, etc.), and am now considering doing a 1-year fellowship funded by my law school and trying to find a 2025 federal appellate clerkship. It seems like a lot of the advice for pursuing a 2nd clerkship is tailored towards BigLaw, so I’m wondering what the professional benefits of another clerkship might be for someone pursuing a public interest career?

I understand that there are personal benefits such as improving writing skills, but I’m specifically wondering if my job prospects for PI positions would materially improve coming off the 2nd clerkship if I was able to get one. If it helps, I’m hoping to do impact litigation work in a major market (DC or NY).

It won't hurt. It's another gold star, and they matter in the impact lit world. That said, your fellowship could end up being more important if you'll be doing impact lit. If you impress the right people, it's a lot easier to get your foot in the door, particularly if you have strong credentials. Having somebody in the "club" who has a good reputation and will vouch for you goes a long way.

That's sort of what I'm worried about, that I'll spend another year clerking or spend time pursuing a clerkship when it might actually be more beneficial to get started in the public interest field even if I'm not doing the exact work I hope to do. Plus I went to law school outside of my target legal market and I feel like I didn't network with folks in my desired field as much as I should have, but never too late to start I suppose!

There's merit to that concern. I'll just say that DC and NYC are tough markets to crack in terms of the high-level impact lit. It'll take gold stars and a network. So if you do end up clerking again, I don't think it'll hurt you. But it's certainly not the only path. The big thing I'll say is you may need to be open to starting out doing high-level impact litigation elsewhere, build the connections and reputation, and then move to one of those markets. I'm not saying you can't get there immediately. It's just hard. You need really strong credentials for the big names.