Saw this on Reddit (linked below) and would love to get more insights. 3,900 hours is a seriously unfathomable amount.
Really any context would be helpful. Here are some specific questions I have
Is this legit?
If so, why?
How is this not implicating all sorts of labor law issues?
Do clerks just have no legal rights?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Lawyertalk/s/2FUgctUomi
DE Chancery Clerks Working 3900 Hours?!?! Forum
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Re: DE Chancery Clerks Working 3900 Hours?!?!
They’re capping dude
Ever since my first week of 1L I have consistently noticed this legal culture of trying to flex by claiming to be working an insane number of hours. People need to give it a rest
Ever since my first week of 1L I have consistently noticed this legal culture of trying to flex by claiming to be working an insane number of hours. People need to give it a rest
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Re: DE Chancery Clerks Working 3900 Hours?!?!
It’s absolutely legit. It’s a story told over and over by chancery clerks. As a prior chancery clerk, I worked these hours. But I wasn’t the only one. And honestly, 3900 might even understate how much I worked.
It was rough. Early mornings to late nights. Every. Single. Day. No weekends, holidays, or vacations. It’s just not a sustainable pace.
Great judges—wonderful people and brilliant jurists. Can’t say enough good things about them. They gave up multi-million-dollar salaries to work roughly the same hours as the clerks (if not more) for a small fraction of their prior pay. It might as well be charity work. At least then, they would get better tax treatment.
Funny, you’d think this would be the most well-resourced court in the country (possibly next to SCOTUS). But nope. The reason for the long hours is simple: funding. There’s just not enough funding to pay for a third clerk or more judges.
If any of us took time off, it would just mean more work for our co-clerk or our judge down the line—both of which were already working 80+ hours a week. So we worked while sick (when clerks or judges got COVID, they just worked from home), we worked while exhausted and sleep-deprived, we worked pretty much every waking moment, and we just tried to survive one day at a time. The court is drowning and needs more resources—more vice chancellors, more masters/magistrates, and way more law clerks.
Other prior clerks have responded on a sub-sub thread to the Reddit post you linked. All of them back this up:
Fuzzy-Funny411 says: “It absolutely is under resourced, which would be apparent if you had internal access to the court for even a moment. Courts have been pushing the government for more funding for years without luck. Clerks are thoroughly warned that the year is a one year sprint and that weekends carry the same hours, if not more, as the weeks. It is literally written in the clerks' contract that your ability to take a day off is subject to your judge's discretion. There are no holidays - at best a state holiday permits you to work from home. People at my firm now are shocked when I tell them I worked on Thanksgiving and Christmas but other chancery clerks wouldn't bat an eye. Part of your concern is actually the reason for so many hours. Clerks and judges are meticulous, self analyzing the evidence in depth rather than relying on the party's briefs and argument. That's part of the reason for the insane number of hours (you had no idea how much time these clerks spend reading text message and email chains) and why the caliber of opinions hasn't fallen despite the uptick in cases. You'll never hear a clerk who makes it the full year (not all do) complain about the workload, they really are in it for the love of the game.”
Time_Strawberry_5184 says: “I imagine the clerks for the new judge (vc cook) had it especially rough. But Chancery is just going nuts the last few years. Everyone is grossly overworked. If a fellow chancery clerk told me they worked 3900+ hours in a year-l'd absolutely believe them. They all but live at the office (some honestly might) and even when they're home they are still working. If I had to guess, I probably crossed well into the 3k territory when I clerked there, and I was hardly the hardest working of the clerks that year. From what I can tell it only continues to get worse there. My first year in private practice felt like a vacation after that year. Truly nightmare fuel for an unsuspecting clerk. But at least you leave the clerkship having eaten and breathed chancery for a year.” And “I have no idea how I survived that year. We worked 10-12 hour days every day. But that was the floor. Like many of you, we had plenty of days where we also worked into the early hours of the morning only to get back up after 0-3 hours of sleep and continue. Some nights, we slept at the office. We skipped almost all federal holidays and barely touched our vacation days-clerks and judges alike. Forget weekends. Lots of clerks got apartments across the street from the courthouse in anticipation of these kind of hours (those clerks didn't usually sleep at the office). But yeah, it was the most mentally grueling year I've ever experienced.”
BrilliantCorgi2285 says: “As another former chancery clerk, agree with this 100%. And absolutely believe 3900. I've been in biglaw more than 8 years now and never worked close to as hard (both in hours and intellectual difficulty) in biglaw as I did in Chancery.”
akaPierre says: “Also a former chancery clerk - this number underestimates what I actually worked. I remember an attorney who had no idea what my life/job was like made some snarky comment in front of my judge about how ‘cushy’ chancery clerks had it since we have a lower caseload than civil and my judge absolutely tore him a new one, saying something along the lines of: ‘Mr. X, you've never worked harder than my law clerks a day in your life! He got out four summary judgment decisions last week!’ I felt seen - in total this was around 150 pages of 12pt, double space. I've never worked harder since, but was it worth it? No.”
As to your other questions, I’d love to know how this implicates labor laws. I am pretty sure I was paid at or below minimum wage when you divide my salary by the hours I worked. Maybe not, but it was at least getting very close.
I worked those hours because there was no one else to do it, and it needed to be done. But do not be mistaken. What I, my fellow chancery clerks, and the judges of the court of chancery went/go through was/is not okay. It needs to change.
It was rough. Early mornings to late nights. Every. Single. Day. No weekends, holidays, or vacations. It’s just not a sustainable pace.
Great judges—wonderful people and brilliant jurists. Can’t say enough good things about them. They gave up multi-million-dollar salaries to work roughly the same hours as the clerks (if not more) for a small fraction of their prior pay. It might as well be charity work. At least then, they would get better tax treatment.
Funny, you’d think this would be the most well-resourced court in the country (possibly next to SCOTUS). But nope. The reason for the long hours is simple: funding. There’s just not enough funding to pay for a third clerk or more judges.
If any of us took time off, it would just mean more work for our co-clerk or our judge down the line—both of which were already working 80+ hours a week. So we worked while sick (when clerks or judges got COVID, they just worked from home), we worked while exhausted and sleep-deprived, we worked pretty much every waking moment, and we just tried to survive one day at a time. The court is drowning and needs more resources—more vice chancellors, more masters/magistrates, and way more law clerks.
Other prior clerks have responded on a sub-sub thread to the Reddit post you linked. All of them back this up:
Fuzzy-Funny411 says: “It absolutely is under resourced, which would be apparent if you had internal access to the court for even a moment. Courts have been pushing the government for more funding for years without luck. Clerks are thoroughly warned that the year is a one year sprint and that weekends carry the same hours, if not more, as the weeks. It is literally written in the clerks' contract that your ability to take a day off is subject to your judge's discretion. There are no holidays - at best a state holiday permits you to work from home. People at my firm now are shocked when I tell them I worked on Thanksgiving and Christmas but other chancery clerks wouldn't bat an eye. Part of your concern is actually the reason for so many hours. Clerks and judges are meticulous, self analyzing the evidence in depth rather than relying on the party's briefs and argument. That's part of the reason for the insane number of hours (you had no idea how much time these clerks spend reading text message and email chains) and why the caliber of opinions hasn't fallen despite the uptick in cases. You'll never hear a clerk who makes it the full year (not all do) complain about the workload, they really are in it for the love of the game.”
Time_Strawberry_5184 says: “I imagine the clerks for the new judge (vc cook) had it especially rough. But Chancery is just going nuts the last few years. Everyone is grossly overworked. If a fellow chancery clerk told me they worked 3900+ hours in a year-l'd absolutely believe them. They all but live at the office (some honestly might) and even when they're home they are still working. If I had to guess, I probably crossed well into the 3k territory when I clerked there, and I was hardly the hardest working of the clerks that year. From what I can tell it only continues to get worse there. My first year in private practice felt like a vacation after that year. Truly nightmare fuel for an unsuspecting clerk. But at least you leave the clerkship having eaten and breathed chancery for a year.” And “I have no idea how I survived that year. We worked 10-12 hour days every day. But that was the floor. Like many of you, we had plenty of days where we also worked into the early hours of the morning only to get back up after 0-3 hours of sleep and continue. Some nights, we slept at the office. We skipped almost all federal holidays and barely touched our vacation days-clerks and judges alike. Forget weekends. Lots of clerks got apartments across the street from the courthouse in anticipation of these kind of hours (those clerks didn't usually sleep at the office). But yeah, it was the most mentally grueling year I've ever experienced.”
BrilliantCorgi2285 says: “As another former chancery clerk, agree with this 100%. And absolutely believe 3900. I've been in biglaw more than 8 years now and never worked close to as hard (both in hours and intellectual difficulty) in biglaw as I did in Chancery.”
akaPierre says: “Also a former chancery clerk - this number underestimates what I actually worked. I remember an attorney who had no idea what my life/job was like made some snarky comment in front of my judge about how ‘cushy’ chancery clerks had it since we have a lower caseload than civil and my judge absolutely tore him a new one, saying something along the lines of: ‘Mr. X, you've never worked harder than my law clerks a day in your life! He got out four summary judgment decisions last week!’ I felt seen - in total this was around 150 pages of 12pt, double space. I've never worked harder since, but was it worth it? No.”
As to your other questions, I’d love to know how this implicates labor laws. I am pretty sure I was paid at or below minimum wage when you divide my salary by the hours I worked. Maybe not, but it was at least getting very close.
I worked those hours because there was no one else to do it, and it needed to be done. But do not be mistaken. What I, my fellow chancery clerks, and the judges of the court of chancery went/go through was/is not okay. It needs to change.
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Re: DE Chancery Clerks Working 3900 Hours?!?!
Re: labor laws, I’d assume that clerks are exempt employees under the FLSA, probably under the professional employee exemption, and are salaried, which means there are no minimum wage/overtime requirements (so long as you get paid at least $684/wk. Number of hours worked doesn’t matter).
I have no knowledge of Chancery hours, but these hours seem perfectly plausible. There are definitely non-Chancery clerks who work these hours, although it’s much less consistent and depends more on the individual judge than just the court.
Not saying it’s okay in any context, just plausible (and legal).
I have no knowledge of Chancery hours, but these hours seem perfectly plausible. There are definitely non-Chancery clerks who work these hours, although it’s much less consistent and depends more on the individual judge than just the court.
Not saying it’s okay in any context, just plausible (and legal).
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