Back-to-Back District Court Clerkships? Forum

[Anonymous User]

So, I have a bit of an issue. I have an interview on Thursday with one district court for 2025, which is generally in the right region of the country for me, but due to its geography it doesn't cover some areas of law I'm interested in. I just got offered an interview for a 2024 district court clerkship in a district that definitely covers those topics (and is generally more prestigious/exciting), to take place early next week.

In a vacuum, I would rather take the 2024 clerkship if offered, and leave the 2025 by the wayside. That said, my risk-aversion is telling me that IF I'm offered the 2025 clerkship I should take it and still take the 2024 interview, and take that if offered.

Should I just plan to accept both is offered, or will that paint me as wanting to be a career clerk? Should I just turn down the 2025 clerkship if offered and bank on the 2024 one? Would it be acceptable to see if I could hold any offer open until after hearing from the 2024 clerkship (I assume no)?

As a note, both are quasi-flyover clerkships, though one is noticeably less so (think like SD Miss vs. D-Colorado). I'm a recent HYS graduate, roughly top-third (inasmuch as you can tell with our grades). I was hoping to do a District and COA clerkship, but probably wouldn't if I did two districts.

[Anonymous User]

Interview with both and then as soon as you get an offer from one (assuming you do) withdraw from the other. I don't thnk doing district court clerkships is a good idea. I would only stack clerkships if it is a different court (COA, SSC, DC) or you're doubling up on COA feeders for SCOTUS chances

[Anonymous User]

Interview with both and then as soon as you get an offer from one (assuming you do) withdraw from the other. I don't thnk doing district court clerkships is a good idea. I would only stack clerkships if it is a different court (COA, SSC, DC) or you're doubling up on COA feeders for SCOTUS chances

What's the downside to doing two district court clerkships vs one year as a junior litigator + one district clerkship? Besides the $$$, which isn't enough to sway me here.

Also, if I did two district court clerkships, would that help with COAs down the line?

[Anonymous User]

Interview with both and then as soon as you get an offer from one (assuming you do) withdraw from the other. I don't thnk doing district court clerkships is a good idea. I would only stack clerkships if it is a different court (COA, SSC, DC) or you're doubling up on COA feeders for SCOTUS chances

What's the downside to doing two district court clerkships vs one year as a junior litigator + one district clerkship? Besides the $$$, which isn't enough to sway me here.

Also, if I did two district court clerkships, would that help with COAs down the line?

It's just unnecessary. One clerkship is a big career boost. Two has negligible returns but firms still give class credit for it. I would much rather enter my third year in a law firm with one DC clerkship and one year in practice then two clerkships in the same level. Certainly won't kill your career, but it'd be odd.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, I don't think it's going to actively hurt you - you can probably explain the situation with the application pretty much as you've done here and people will get doing two, rather than assume you're a career clerk wannabe. But I agree that it's not going to add very much (flashback to some random TV chef saying not to use water as a liquid in some recipe b/c it doesn't bring any flavor to the party). If you have a burning passion to do both for the experience, then go for it, but otherwise, I agree, take whichever one makes you an offer first and withdraw from the other.

FWIW, depending on what the determined-by-geography area of law you're interested in is, it may not even come up during the 2024 clerkship.

Doing one district court clerkship can definitely help for a COA clerkship down the line, but two isn't going to move the needle, unless your second judge has significantly more/different/better connections than the first.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, I don't think it's going to actively hurt you - you can probably explain the situation with the application pretty much as you've done here and people will get doing two, rather than assume you're a career clerk wannabe. But I agree that it's not going to add very much (flashback to some random TV chef saying not to use water as a liquid in some recipe b/c it doesn't bring any flavor to the party). If you have a burning passion to do both for the experience, then go for it, but otherwise, I agree, take whichever one makes you an offer first and withdraw from the other.

FWIW, depending on what the determined-by-geography area of law you're interested in is, it may not even come up during the 2024 clerkship.

Doing one district court clerkship can definitely help for a COA clerkship down the line, but two isn't going to move the needle, unless your second judge has significantly more/different/better connections than the first.

Indian law in a reservation-heavy district, which IMO makes it pretty likely that at least something comes across my desk; it was specifically mentioned in the scheduling call. And the two judges both seem fairly well connected, though the 2024 one seems substantially more so.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, I don't think it's going to actively hurt you - you can probably explain the situation with the application pretty much as you've done here and people will get doing two, rather than assume you're a career clerk wannabe. But I agree that it's not going to add very much (flashback to some random TV chef saying not to use water as a liquid in some recipe b/c it doesn't bring any flavor to the party). If you have a burning passion to do both for the experience, then go for it, but otherwise, I agree, take whichever one makes you an offer first and withdraw from the other.

FWIW, depending on what the determined-by-geography area of law you're interested in is, it may not even come up during the 2024 clerkship.

Doing one district court clerkship can definitely help for a COA clerkship down the line, but two isn't going to move the needle, unless your second judge has significantly more/different/better connections than the first.

Indian law in a reservation-heavy district, which IMO makes it pretty likely that at least something comes across my desk; it was specifically mentioned in the scheduling call. And the two judges both seem fairly well connected, though the 2024 one seems substantially more so.

Ah, that's funny, I nearly said that the only areas of law I could think of that might fit would be immigration, maritime, or Indian law (and I don't run into a lot of people here interested in any of those). Yeah, if they mentioned it to you, you'll likely encounter it.

I clerked in a district with a lot of Indian country and while it didn't involve a lot of Indian-specific law - as opposed to standard federal law addressing events that took place in Indian country - it was still informative.

Do you want to practice Indian law in the future, or do you just think it would be more interesting than the other clerkship? If you actually want to practice Indian law in the future, that would a legitimate reason/explanation for doing a second DCt clerkship if you have to commit to 2025 before getting 2024. On a personal level, it's valuable experience - you won't be able to talk much about specific cases, but you can say that you've worked on Indian law cases, and the knowledge you get will help you interview better.

Wrt job applications, you can justify the second clerkship a way to get pertinent experience you wouldn't get otherwise (you can explain that chronologically it was first but the offer came second). This probably wouldn't be the case most areas of law, but Indian law is legitimately limited to certain jurisdictions, and working in Indian law is more like public interest where demonstrated commitment and experience (and connections) are particularly valuable. (Don't mean to tell you things you probably already know, just explaining my reasoning.)

Wrt timing - I know you have to be prepared to get and respond to an offer on the spot on Thursday, but I think it's much more common now, especially in off plan hiring, for judges either to take some time to make an offer, or give you some time to consider. The exploding offer practice made sense during strict on-plan hiring, where nationally, judges were interviewing the same candidates during the same 1-3 days and felt they had to move instantly to get the candidates they wanted. Some judges still do this so you can't rule it out, but it's not universal (and anecdotally, I think it's always been less common in the west, where a lot of Indian country is).

So you may end up getting enough time to go to the second interview before getting an offer from/having to respond to the first judge. In that case, telling the judges about your other offers/interviews is sort of tricky, since logistically, you can do both clerkships but would just prefer one. If they were for the same term, you'd definitely want to tell the second judge about the other interview so they know you might not be available if they wait to hire - but here, that's not an issue. So you have personal reasons for wanting to get the 2024 offer before the 2025, but that's a you issue, not a judge issue.

However, if you do get to the second interview before having to commit to the first judge, and the second judge asks you about other applications/plans etc, I think you can be fairly honest about your situation and preferring to do only one and wanting theirs. But the issue is more whether if you took 2025, you'd pass on 2024. If you'd do 2024 regardless, your personal calculations aren't that relevant to the 2024 judge, if that makes sense. There are definitely judges out there who would understand the calculus and be sympathetic, but it's still not quite their problem, and you want to avoid giving any impression that you're trying to leverage offers/interviews.

[Anonymous User]

So, I have a bit of an issue. I have an interview on Thursday with one district court for 2025, which is generally in the right region of the country for me, but due to its geography it doesn't cover some areas of law I'm interested in. I just got offered an interview for a 2024 district court clerkship in a district that definitely covers those topics (and is generally more prestigious/exciting), to take place early next week.

In a vacuum, I would rather take the 2024 clerkship if offered, and leave the 2025 by the wayside. That said, my risk-aversion is telling me that IF I'm offered the 2025 clerkship I should take it and still take the 2024 interview, and take that if offered.

Should I just plan to accept both is offered, or will that paint me as wanting to be a career clerk? Should I just turn down the 2025 clerkship if offered and bank on the 2024 one? Would it be acceptable to see if I could hold any offer open until after hearing from the 2024 clerkship (I assume no)?

As a note, both are quasi-flyover clerkships, though one is noticeably less so (think like SD Miss vs. D-Colorado). I'm a recent HYS graduate, roughly top-third (inasmuch as you can tell with our grades). I was hoping to do a District and COA clerkship, but probably wouldn't if I did two districts.

do people really consider Denver to be flyover? I don't think D Colorado in denver is seen as less prestigious than like SDCA san diego or WDWA seattle

[Anonymous User]

So, I have a bit of an issue. I have an interview on Thursday with one district court for 2025, which is generally in the right region of the country for me, but due to its geography it doesn't cover some areas of law I'm interested in. I just got offered an interview for a 2024 district court clerkship in a district that definitely covers those topics (and is generally more prestigious/exciting), to take place early next week.

In a vacuum, I would rather take the 2024 clerkship if offered, and leave the 2025 by the wayside. That said, my risk-aversion is telling me that IF I'm offered the 2025 clerkship I should take it and still take the 2024 interview, and take that if offered.

Should I just plan to accept both is offered, or will that paint me as wanting to be a career clerk? Should I just turn down the 2025 clerkship if offered and bank on the 2024 one? Would it be acceptable to see if I could hold any offer open until after hearing from the 2024 clerkship (I assume no)?

As a note, both are quasi-flyover clerkships, though one is noticeably less so (think like SD Miss vs. D-Colorado). I'm a recent HYS graduate, roughly top-third (inasmuch as you can tell with our grades). I was hoping to do a District and COA clerkship, but probably wouldn't if I did two districts.

do people really consider Denver to be flyover? I don't think D Colorado in denver is seen as less prestigious than like SDCA san diego or WDWA seattle

[Anonymous User]

Not the OP nor at HYS, and I definitely don’t consider Denver flyover. But I suspect given people’s obsession here with ranking clerkships (which is really not very helpful), it’s easy enough to think that everyone here considers anything outside of NYC, DC, SF, LA, and maybe Chicago and Houston and Dallas to be “flyover,” or at least partly. So I assumed that’s the distinction the OP was trying to make.

[Anonymous User]

Not the OP nor at HYS, and I definitely don’t consider Denver flyover. But I suspect given people’s obsession here with ranking clerkships (which is really not very helpful), it’s easy enough to think that everyone here considers anything outside of NYC, DC, SF, LA, and maybe Chicago and Houston and Dallas to be “flyover,” or at least partly. So I assumed that’s the distinction the OP was trying to make.

That's exactly it. Frankly, for my interests D-Colorado (and the actual district I'm interviewing in) makes way more sense than, say, SDNY--but it helps to distinguish the position I'm in to say I'm not in one of the big-big city districts.

Edit: Personally, I wouldn't count districts like ED Louisiana or SD Miss to really be "flyover" either--they have big cities with exciting cases--but they're not what people on this forum tend to see as preftigious and so they kinda get subsumed into the greater mass.

[Anonymous User]

I just think it’s demeaning in general to insult a clerkship with a pejorative like “flyover” because despite its original intent to just refer to geography, it’s often used in a dismissive way to signal that the judges/clerks on those courts aren’t of the same “caliber” as people in large, coastal markets. That is inaccurate in reality (Judges Thapar was once a “lowly flyover” district judge) and vastly underestimates the value that judges and clerks throughout the country can offer.

Of course, some dockets will have more commercial/complex cases, like DC or New York. But does that equate to more impressive judges or clerks? You can’t really compare that financial work to dockets heavy on intricate Indian law issues in Western states, voting rights challenges in Midwestern swing states, or novel environmental/opioid nuisance suits in Appalachia and conclude that one is necessarily better than the other.

[Anonymous User]

I just think it’s demeaning in general to insult a clerkship with a pejorative like “flyover” because despite its original intent to just refer to geography, it’s often used in a dismissive way to signal that the judges/clerks on those courts aren’t of the same “caliber” as people in large, coastal markets. That is inaccurate in reality (Judges Thapar was once a “lowly flyover” district judge) and vastly underestimates the value that judges and clerks throughout the country can offer.

Of course, some dockets will have more commercial/complex cases, like DC or New York. But does that equate to more impressive judges or clerks? You can’t really compare that financial work to dockets heavy on intricate Indian law issues in Western states, voting rights challenges in Midwestern swing states, or novel environmental/opioid nuisance suits in Appalachia and conclude that one is necessarily better than the other.

I agree, but it's wormed its way into the parlance, usually because forums like these are focused on biglaw and the dockets that biglaw firms work on. When in Rome...

[Anonymous User]

I just think it’s demeaning in general to insult a clerkship with a pejorative like “flyover” because despite its original intent to just refer to geography, it’s often used in a dismissive way to signal that the judges/clerks on those courts aren’t of the same “caliber” as people in large, coastal markets. That is inaccurate in reality (Judges Thapar was once a “lowly flyover” district judge) and vastly underestimates the value that judges and clerks throughout the country can offer.

Of course, some dockets will have more commercial/complex cases, like DC or New York. But does that equate to more impressive judges or clerks? You can’t really compare that financial work to dockets heavy on intricate Indian law issues in Western states, voting rights challenges in Midwestern swing states, or novel environmental/opioid nuisance suits in Appalachia and conclude that one is necessarily better than the other.

I agree, but it's wormed its way into the parlance, usually because forums like these are focused on biglaw and the dockets that biglaw firms work on. When in Rome...

Agreed! I’ll use it but I put it in quotes to suggest it’s not accurate. I’ve clerked and worked in places that many people here would disdain, and have had great experiences (and I wouldn’t live in NYC unless you could pay me enough to have the 3000 sq ft house on 2 acres of woods I currently live on. Which *isn’t* to start a flame war about cities or where’s the best place to live, just to note that different people like different things).