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How does the four-year limit for federal term clerks work? Does it mean that you can't serve for a term longer than four years for a single judge, or does it mean that you can't serve for more than four years in total?

Pretty sure it’s four years in total, but I’m basing that off of what I’ve heard/seen from others. I’ve seen people go on to clerk for Thomas and Alito after clerking on the federal courts for four years, for whatever that’s worth. (SCOTUS can probably do whatever it wants though.)

Yeah, my understanding also is that it’s 4 years total (barring SCOTUS apparently!).