Columbia students taking questions Forum

[FascinatedWanderer]

I used him as an example because he's been the second most important feeder in recent years (after Garland) and he takes 1-2 from CLS yearly. Kozinski, Posner, Leval, Boudin, Fletcher, Lynch, Livingston would all be other examples (although I suppose you'd call home field advantage on the last two as well). There are dozens of other judges that interview CLS students each year that are likely considered feeders (I don't have an authoritative guide and the standard is somewhat opaque to begin with). It would seem that CLS does do better with the 9th and 2nd Circuit judges than the major DC feeders right now, who tend to prefer Harvard/Chicago. I don't know why.

OK, you clearly have no idea what's going on here so let's point out a couple of these.

Posner: 1 clerk from us ever
Fletcher: Last clerk was 2011 term
Boudin: 4 clerks ever, last one 2013 term

[jbagelboy]

Dude you have no credibility. Posner has taken one clerk from us. Ever.

Also, Katzmann took a CLS '15, but AFAIK has not taken any since. Are you just making stuff up as you go along? #alternativeclerkships

Okay. Not sure why you feel the need to become so adversarial here. I said I was pushing back on your statement, not that I think you have no credibility, which is a bit harsh. We're all alums here. Perhaps this is best taken off line but I'll respond in brief.

There's a list maintained by the school (or that used to be maintained by the school) that records--imperfectly and non-exhaustively--where CLS alums have gone to clerk recently. Calabresi is on that list. It is not factually accurate to state that the school has never sent him a clerk.

It's difficult to gauge exactly who is with a feeder unless they emerge onto SCOTUS at which point it gets picked up by ATL, which of course only happens in a handful of cases each year. As for Katzmann, though, there's plenty of evidence of a yearly or almost yearly practice of hiring a clerk from CLS, so I'm not sure this is your hill to fight on. Your anecdote is odd: there is someone from CLS currently in chambers with him right now, and there will be another starting soon. Over the past few years, there have been many: this years,
from 2014 OT, 2015, 2000, 2003 2006, 2007, 2009, ect., ect., I'm not going to pull every profile. Kozinski is also fairly regular. As for Posner, he's not regular and I likely overstated, but I'm curious where you're getting your number "just 1." I'm not asking you to prove a negative, just curious what your source is for this information since it conflicts with mine and I have a difficult time thinking of myself as non-reputable.

[FascinatedWanderer]

http://www.law.columbia.edu/sites/defau ... 5.2.16.pdf

Not updated in some months, but there you are.

[FascinatedWanderer]

Dude you have no credibility. Posner has taken one clerk from us. Ever.

Also, Katzmann took a CLS '15, but AFAIK has not taken any since. Are you just making stuff up as you go along? #alternativeclerkships

Okay. Not sure why you feel the need to become so adversarial here. I said I was pushing back on your statement, not that I think you have no credibility, which is a bit harsh. We're all alums here. Perhaps this is best taken off line but I'll respond in brief.

There's a list maintained by the school (or that used to be maintained by the school) that records--imperfectly and non-exhaustively--where CLS alums have gone to clerk recently. Calabresi is on that list. It is not factually accurate to state that the school has never sent him a clerk.

It's difficult to gauge exactly who is with a feeder unless they emerge onto SCOTUS at which point it gets picked up by ATL, which of course only happens in a handful of cases each year. As for Katzmann, though, there's plenty of evidence of a yearly or almost yearly practice of hiring a clerk from CLS, so I'm not sure this is your hill to fight on. Your anecdote is odd: there is someone from CLS currently in chambers with him right now, and there will be another starting soon. Over the past few years, there have been many: this years,
from 2014 OT, 2015, 2000, 2003 2006, 2007, 2009, ect., ect., I'm not going to pull every profile. Kozinski is also fairly regular. As for Posner, he's not regular and I likely overstated, but I'm curious where you're getting your number "just 1." I'm not asking you to prove a negative, just curious what your source is for this information since it conflicts with mine and I have a difficult time thinking of myself as non-reputable.

I'm a bit confused how you're being so sloppy here. That 2015 link you posted was to someone in Livingston's chambers, not Katzmann's.

[Nebby]

FW seems very charming

[jbagelboy]

Dude you have no credibility. Posner has taken one clerk from us. Ever.

Also, Katzmann took a CLS '15, but AFAIK has not taken any since. Are you just making stuff up as you go along? #alternativeclerkships

Okay. Not sure why you feel the need to become so adversarial here. I said I was pushing back on your statement, not that I think you have no credibility, which is a bit harsh. We're all alums here. Perhaps this is best taken off line but I'll respond in brief.

There's a list maintained by the school (or that used to be maintained by the school) that records--imperfectly and non-exhaustively--where CLS alums have gone to clerk recently. Calabresi is on that list. It is not factually accurate to state that the school has never sent him a clerk.

It's difficult to gauge exactly who is with a feeder unless they emerge onto SCOTUS at which point it gets picked up by ATL, which of course only happens in a handful of cases each year. As for Katzmann, though, there's plenty of evidence of a yearly or almost yearly practice of hiring a clerk from CLS, so I'm not sure this is your hill to fight on. Your anecdote is odd: there is someone from CLS currently in chambers with him right now, and there will be another starting soon. Over the past few years, there have been many: this years,
from 2014 OT, 2015, 2000, 2003 2006, 2007, 2009, ect., ect., I'm not going to pull every profile. Kozinski is also fairly regular. As for Posner, he's not regular and I likely overstated, but I'm curious where you're getting your number "just 1." I'm not asking you to prove a negative, just curious what your source is for this information since it conflicts with mine and I have a difficult time thinking of myself as non-reputable.

I'm a bit confused how you're being so sloppy here. That 2015 link you posted was to someone in Livingston's chambers, not Katzmann's.

because I'm trying to do this on my phone while walking home from work to prove a point and was just grabbing links. my mistake.

why do you seem so embittered about columbia's clerkship program? many of us have gotten clerkships with good judges. i'm not denying the clerkship program could be vastly improved. but its not like there's this wide swathe of judges that simply refuse to interview candidates from the school

[FascinatedWanderer]

FW seems very charming

I'm very pleasant. The pleasantest person ever. Many people say so. The best people.

[FascinatedWanderer]

Dude you have no credibility. Posner has taken one clerk from us. Ever.

Also, Katzmann took a CLS '15, but AFAIK has not taken any since. Are you just making stuff up as you go along? #alternativeclerkships

Okay. Not sure why you feel the need to become so adversarial here. I said I was pushing back on your statement, not that I think you have no credibility, which is a bit harsh. We're all alums here. Perhaps this is best taken off line but I'll respond in brief.

There's a list maintained by the school (or that used to be maintained by the school) that records--imperfectly and non-exhaustively--where CLS alums have gone to clerk recently. Calabresi is on that list. It is not factually accurate to state that the school has never sent him a clerk.

It's difficult to gauge exactly who is with a feeder unless they emerge onto SCOTUS at which point it gets picked up by ATL, which of course only happens in a handful of cases each year. As for Katzmann, though, there's plenty of evidence of a yearly or almost yearly practice of hiring a clerk from CLS, so I'm not sure this is your hill to fight on. Your anecdote is odd: there is someone from CLS currently in chambers with him right now, and there will be another starting soon. Over the past few years, there have been many: this years,
from 2014 OT, 2015, 2000, 2003 2006, 2007, 2009, ect., ect., I'm not going to pull every profile. Kozinski is also fairly regular. As for Posner, he's not regular and I likely overstated, but I'm curious where you're getting your number "just 1." I'm not asking you to prove a negative, just curious what your source is for this information since it conflicts with mine and I have a difficult time thinking of myself as non-reputable.

I'm a bit confused how you're being so sloppy here. That 2015 link you posted was to someone in Livingston's chambers, not Katzmann's.

because I'm trying to do this on my phone while walking home from work to prove a point and was just grabbing links. my mistake.

why do you seem so embittered about columbia's clerkship program? many of us have gotten clerkships with good judges. i'm not denying the clerkship program could be vastly improved. but its not like there's this wide swathe of judges that simply refuse to interview candidates from the school

Look, I'm quite happy with the clerkships I picked up, but that doesn't mean I have to pretend the school does a good job with this.

[FascinatedWanderer]

Dude you have no credibility. Posner has taken one clerk from us. Ever.

Also, Katzmann took a CLS '15, but AFAIK has not taken any since. Are you just making stuff up as you go along? #alternativeclerkships

Okay. Not sure why you feel the need to become so adversarial here. I said I was pushing back on your statement, not that I think you have no credibility, which is a bit harsh. We're all alums here. Perhaps this is best taken off line but I'll respond in brief.

There's a list maintained by the school (or that used to be maintained by the school) that records--imperfectly and non-exhaustively--where CLS alums have gone to clerk recently. Calabresi is on that list. It is not factually accurate to state that the school has never sent him a clerk.

It's difficult to gauge exactly who is with a feeder unless they emerge onto SCOTUS at which point it gets picked up by ATL, which of course only happens in a handful of cases each year. As for Katzmann, though, there's plenty of evidence of a yearly or almost yearly practice of hiring a clerk from CLS, so I'm not sure this is your hill to fight on. Your anecdote is odd: there is someone from CLS currently in chambers with him right now, and there will be another starting soon. Over the past few years, there have been many: this years,
from 2014 OT, 2015, 2000, 2003 2006, 2007, 2009, ect., ect., I'm not going to pull every profile. Kozinski is also fairly regular. As for Posner, he's not regular and I likely overstated, but I'm curious where you're getting your number "just 1." I'm not asking you to prove a negative, just curious what your source is for this information since it conflicts with mine and I have a difficult time thinking of myself as non-reputable.

Also what is this other list? Is there something more authoritative than the handbook? That's where o see only one Posner clerk.

[Nebby]

FW seems very charming

I'm very pleasant. The pleasantest person ever. Many people say so. The best people.

How many people have you told about making Kent? Over/under 10?

[Nebby]

What are y'all even arguing about? Aren't we all in agreement that the clerkship support is lacking?

[RSN]

Dude you have no credibility. Posner has taken one clerk from us. Ever.

Also, Katzmann took a CLS '15, but AFAIK has not taken any since. Are you just making stuff up as you go along? #alternativeclerkships

Okay. Not sure why you feel the need to become so adversarial here. I said I was pushing back on your statement, not that I think you have no credibility, which is a bit harsh. We're all alums here. Perhaps this is best taken off line but I'll respond in brief.

There's a list maintained by the school (or that used to be maintained by the school) that records--imperfectly and non-exhaustively--where CLS alums have gone to clerk recently. Calabresi is on that list. It is not factually accurate to state that the school has never sent him a clerk.

It's difficult to gauge exactly who is with a feeder unless they emerge onto SCOTUS at which point it gets picked up by ATL, which of course only happens in a handful of cases each year. As for Katzmann, though, there's plenty of evidence of a yearly or almost yearly practice of hiring a clerk from CLS, so I'm not sure this is your hill to fight on. Your anecdote is odd: there is someone from CLS currently in chambers with him right now, and there will be another starting soon. Over the past few years, there have been many: this years,
from 2014 OT, 2015, 2000, 2003 2006, 2007, 2009, ect., ect., I'm not going to pull every profile. Kozinski is also fairly regular. As for Posner, he's not regular and I likely overstated, but I'm curious where you're getting your number "just 1." I'm not asking you to prove a negative, just curious what your source is for this information since it conflicts with mine and I have a difficult time thinking of myself as non-reputable.

I'm a bit confused how you're being so sloppy here. That 2015 link you posted was to someone in Livingston's chambers, not Katzmann's.

because I'm trying to do this on my phone while walking home from work to prove a point and was just grabbing links. my mistake.

why do you seem so embittered about columbia's clerkship program? many of us have gotten clerkships with good judges. i'm not denying the clerkship program could be vastly improved. but its not like there's this wide swathe of judges that simply refuse to interview candidates from the school

Based on his posts last time this came up, he's a FedSoc guy bitter that he went to too liberal of a school and wasn't able to get a spot with Kavanaugh/Wilkinson/Sutton/the Reagan nominees on D.C. Cir. on the way to a gig with Roberts or Thomas, despite his Kent grades and winning personality, and now he blames the school's admittedly mediocre clerkship resources. I don't know that it's untrue that some of those judges don't really interview Columbia people, but the idea that it's because of something to do with the Columbia administration's reputation seems pretty weak to me, as opposed to e.g. lack of conservative faculty.

[derekne]

Dude you have no credibility. Posner has taken one clerk from us. Ever.

Also, Katzmann took a CLS '15, but AFAIK has not taken any since. Are you just making stuff up as you go along? #alternativeclerkships

Okay. Not sure why you feel the need to become so adversarial here. I said I was pushing back on your statement, not that I think you have no credibility, which is a bit harsh. We're all alums here. Perhaps this is best taken off line but I'll respond in brief.

There's a list maintained by the school (or that used to be maintained by the school) that records--imperfectly and non-exhaustively--where CLS alums have gone to clerk recently. Calabresi is on that list. It is not factually accurate to state that the school has never sent him a clerk.

It's difficult to gauge exactly who is with a feeder unless they emerge onto SCOTUS at which point it gets picked up by ATL, which of course only happens in a handful of cases each year. As for Katzmann, though, there's plenty of evidence of a yearly or almost yearly practice of hiring a clerk from CLS, so I'm not sure this is your hill to fight on. Your anecdote is odd: there is someone from CLS currently in chambers with him right now, and there will be another starting soon. Over the past few years, there have been many: this years,
from 2014 OT, 2015, 2000, 2003 2006, 2007, 2009, ect., ect., I'm not going to pull every profile. Kozinski is also fairly regular. As for Posner, he's not regular and I likely overstated, but I'm curious where you're getting your number "just 1." I'm not asking you to prove a negative, just curious what your source is for this information since it conflicts with mine and I have a difficult time thinking of myself as non-reputable.

I'm a bit confused how you're being so sloppy here. That 2015 link you posted was to someone in Livingston's chambers, not Katzmann's.

because I'm trying to do this on my phone while walking home from work to prove a point and was just grabbing links. my mistake.

why do you seem so embittered about columbia's clerkship program? many of us have gotten clerkships with good judges. i'm not denying the clerkship program could be vastly improved. but its not like there's this wide swathe of judges that simply refuse to interview candidates from the school

I'm a 0L so I could be completely wrong about this but taking a look at the list it seems as if a lot of the low placement can be explained by factors other than CLS having a terrible reputation. A lot of the judges mentioned are conservative and I'm sure there is some ideological sieve for the prominent ones. Given that CLS' student body skews heavily to the left and if one poster who suggested that the right of center faculty members don't have warm relationships with a lot of these judges, the deficit could be explained by those two factors which play heavily in hiring. Also some judges are naturally inclined to take clerks from other peer schools,(i.e Posner and UChicago etc...)

[RSN]

What are y'all even arguing about? Aren't we all in agreement that the clerkship support is lacking?

Yeah, but this guy's trying to say that some of his conservative dream judges hate Columbia, and while our resources might be less than they could be, the claim that it's animus-based is hard to believe without evidence.

[derekne]

Dude you have no credibility. Posner has taken one clerk from us. Ever.

Also, Katzmann took a CLS '15, but AFAIK has not taken any since. Are you just making stuff up as you go along? #alternativeclerkships

Okay. Not sure why you feel the need to become so adversarial here. I said I was pushing back on your statement, not that I think you have no credibility, which is a bit harsh. We're all alums here. Perhaps this is best taken off line but I'll respond in brief.

There's a list maintained by the school (or that used to be maintained by the school) that records--imperfectly and non-exhaustively--where CLS alums have gone to clerk recently. Calabresi is on that list. It is not factually accurate to state that the school has never sent him a clerk.

It's difficult to gauge exactly who is with a feeder unless they emerge onto SCOTUS at which point it gets picked up by ATL, which of course only happens in a handful of cases each year. As for Katzmann, though, there's plenty of evidence of a yearly or almost yearly practice of hiring a clerk from CLS, so I'm not sure this is your hill to fight on. Your anecdote is odd: there is someone from CLS currently in chambers with him right now, and there will be another starting soon. Over the past few years, there have been many: this years,
from 2014 OT, 2015, 2000, 2003 2006, 2007, 2009, ect., ect., I'm not going to pull every profile. Kozinski is also fairly regular. As for Posner, he's not regular and I likely overstated, but I'm curious where you're getting your number "just 1." I'm not asking you to prove a negative, just curious what your source is for this information since it conflicts with mine and I have a difficult time thinking of myself as non-reputable.

I'm a bit confused how you're being so sloppy here. That 2015 link you posted was to someone in Livingston's chambers, not Katzmann's.

because I'm trying to do this on my phone while walking home from work to prove a point and was just grabbing links. my mistake.

why do you seem so embittered about columbia's clerkship program? many of us have gotten clerkships with good judges. i'm not denying the clerkship program could be vastly improved. but its not like there's this wide swathe of judges that simply refuse to interview candidates from the school

Based on his posts last time this came up, he's a FedSoc guy bitter that he went to too liberal of a school and wasn't able to get a spot with Kavanaugh/Wilkinson/Sutton/the Reagan nominees on D.C. Cir. on the way to a gig with Roberts or Thomas, despite his Kent grades and winning personality, and now he blames the school's admittedly mediocre clerkship resources. I don't know that it's untrue that some of those judges don't really interview Columbia people, but the idea that it's because of something to do with the Columbia administration's reputation seems pretty weak to me, as opposed to e.g. lack of conservative faculty.

Agree completely. And honestly if Judges were choosing not to interview/hire people from CLS, one would think it would be based primarily on the quality of past CLS clerks being poor,(which I don't believe) and not on the ineptitude of the administration. I think ideology and lack of connections, coupled with the poor clerkship office, is what causes CLS grads to be underrepresented in prominent conservative COA chambers.

[derekne]

Dude you have no credibility. Posner has taken one clerk from us. Ever.

Also, Katzmann took a CLS '15, but AFAIK has not taken any since. Are you just making stuff up as you go along? #alternativeclerkships

Okay. Not sure why you feel the need to become so adversarial here. I said I was pushing back on your statement, not that I think you have no credibility, which is a bit harsh. We're all alums here. Perhaps this is best taken off line but I'll respond in brief.

There's a list maintained by the school (or that used to be maintained by the school) that records--imperfectly and non-exhaustively--where CLS alums have gone to clerk recently. Calabresi is on that list. It is not factually accurate to state that the school has never sent him a clerk.

It's difficult to gauge exactly who is with a feeder unless they emerge onto SCOTUS at which point it gets picked up by ATL, which of course only happens in a handful of cases each year. As for Katzmann, though, there's plenty of evidence of a yearly or almost yearly practice of hiring a clerk from CLS, so I'm not sure this is your hill to fight on. Your anecdote is odd: there is someone from CLS currently in chambers with him right now, and there will be another starting soon. Over the past few years, there have been many: this years,
from 2014 OT, 2015, 2000, 2003 2006, 2007, 2009, ect., ect., I'm not going to pull every profile. Kozinski is also fairly regular. As for Posner, he's not regular and I likely overstated, but I'm curious where you're getting your number "just 1." I'm not asking you to prove a negative, just curious what your source is for this information since it conflicts with mine and I have a difficult time thinking of myself as non-reputable.

I'm a bit confused how you're being so sloppy here. That 2015 link you posted was to someone in Livingston's chambers, not Katzmann's.

because I'm trying to do this on my phone while walking home from work to prove a point and was just grabbing links. my mistake.

why do you seem so embittered about columbia's clerkship program? many of us have gotten clerkships with good judges. i'm not denying the clerkship program could be vastly improved. but its not like there's this wide swathe of judges that simply refuse to interview candidates from the school

Based on his posts last time this came up, he's a FedSoc guy bitter that he went to too liberal of a school and wasn't able to get a spot with Kavanaugh/Wilkinson/Sutton/the Reagan nominees on D.C. Cir. on the way to a gig with Roberts or Thomas, despite his Kent grades and winning personality, and now he blames the school's admittedly mediocre clerkship resources. I don't know that it's untrue that some of those judges don't really interview Columbia people, but the idea that it's because of something to do with the Columbia administration's reputation seems pretty weak to me, as opposed to e.g. lack of conservative faculty.

You could even qualify that to say lack of a conservative faculty that are household names in conservative legal circles. GULC only has three conservatives on its faculty but two of them are Randy Barnett and Nick Rosenkranz,(both of whom are very prominent conservative legal thinkers whose recommendations would probably carry a lot more weight than Hamburger or Bobbitt)

[RSN]

Dude you have no credibility. Posner has taken one clerk from us. Ever.

Also, Katzmann took a CLS '15, but AFAIK has not taken any since. Are you just making stuff up as you go along? #alternativeclerkships

Okay. Not sure why you feel the need to become so adversarial here. I said I was pushing back on your statement, not that I think you have no credibility, which is a bit harsh. We're all alums here. Perhaps this is best taken off line but I'll respond in brief.

There's a list maintained by the school (or that used to be maintained by the school) that records--imperfectly and non-exhaustively--where CLS alums have gone to clerk recently. Calabresi is on that list. It is not factually accurate to state that the school has never sent him a clerk.

It's difficult to gauge exactly who is with a feeder unless they emerge onto SCOTUS at which point it gets picked up by ATL, which of course only happens in a handful of cases each year. As for Katzmann, though, there's plenty of evidence of a yearly or almost yearly practice of hiring a clerk from CLS, so I'm not sure this is your hill to fight on. Your anecdote is odd: there is someone from CLS currently in chambers with him right now, and there will be another starting soon. Over the past few years, there have been many: this years,
from 2014 OT, 2015, 2000, 2003 2006, 2007, 2009, ect., ect., I'm not going to pull every profile. Kozinski is also fairly regular. As for Posner, he's not regular and I likely overstated, but I'm curious where you're getting your number "just 1." I'm not asking you to prove a negative, just curious what your source is for this information since it conflicts with mine and I have a difficult time thinking of myself as non-reputable.

I'm a bit confused how you're being so sloppy here. That 2015 link you posted was to someone in Livingston's chambers, not Katzmann's.

because I'm trying to do this on my phone while walking home from work to prove a point and was just grabbing links. my mistake.

why do you seem so embittered about columbia's clerkship program? many of us have gotten clerkships with good judges. i'm not denying the clerkship program could be vastly improved. but its not like there's this wide swathe of judges that simply refuse to interview candidates from the school

Based on his posts last time this came up, he's a FedSoc guy bitter that he went to too liberal of a school and wasn't able to get a spot with Kavanaugh/Wilkinson/Sutton/the Reagan nominees on D.C. Cir. on the way to a gig with Roberts or Thomas, despite his Kent grades and winning personality, and now he blames the school's admittedly mediocre clerkship resources. I don't know that it's untrue that some of those judges don't really interview Columbia people, but the idea that it's because of something to do with the Columbia administration's reputation seems pretty weak to me, as opposed to e.g. lack of conservative faculty.

Agree completely. And honestly if Judges were choosing not to interview/hire people from CLS, one would think it would be based primarily on the quality of past CLS clerks being poor,(which I don't believe) and not on the ineptitude of the administration. I think ideology and lack of connections, coupled with the poor clerkship office, is what causes CLS grads to be underrepresented in prominent conservative COA chambers.

I think that's right. You can probably count on one hand the number of students attending Columbia at any given time who have both (1) the grades for COA clerkships, especially for these big conservative feeders, and (2) the correct ideological orientation for them. That's also true of conservative faculty members (we literally have less than five, last I checked).

So I guess the takeaway from this is that if your end all be all goal in law school and life is a conservative feeder on your way to a conservative SCOTUS clerkship, maybe CLS isn't the best place for you, and you should probably be trying to go to UVA or Chicago if you can't get into YHS. I think most people recognize that when they're choosing schools, though, so this just doesn't come up that much, except for our embittered friend here.

[dabigchina]

What are y'all even arguing about? Aren't we all in agreement that the clerkship support is lacking?

Yeah, but this guy's trying to say that some of his conservative dream judges hate Columbia, and while our resources might be less than they could be, the claim that it's animus-based is hard to believe without evidence.

Maybe saying our crappy clerkship office is solely responsible for these judges not hiring CLS grads is hyperbolic, but his experience is valid IMO. If conservative judges don't like hiring from us for whatever reason, that's a valid thing to consider for 0Ls who might be interested in something like that.

eta: sort of scooped by bagel.

[derekne]

What are y'all even arguing about? Aren't we all in agreement that the clerkship support is lacking?

Yeah, but this guy's trying to say that some of his conservative dream judges hate Columbia, and while our resources might be less than they could be, the claim that it's animus-based is hard to believe without evidence.

Maybe saying our crappy clerkship office is solely responsible for these judges not hiring CLS grads is hyperbolic, but his experience is valid IMO. If conservative judges don't like hiring from us for whatever reason, that's a valid thing to consider for 0Ls who might be interested in something like that.

eta: sort of scooped by bagel.

I don't think its that they don't like CLS grads. I think its probably, as RSN noted, a small of CLS students who fit the bill coupled with a lack of sufficiently prominent recommenders compared to other schools,(it could also be that for whatever reason none of the conservative faculty members like going to bat for students which would put the clerkship office more at fault).

[dabigchina]

What are y'all even arguing about? Aren't we all in agreement that the clerkship support is lacking?

Yeah, but this guy's trying to say that some of his conservative dream judges hate Columbia, and while our resources might be less than they could be, the claim that it's animus-based is hard to believe without evidence.

Maybe saying our crappy clerkship office is solely responsible for these judges not hiring CLS grads is hyperbolic, but his experience is valid IMO. If conservative judges don't like hiring from us for whatever reason, that's a valid thing to consider for 0Ls who might be interested in something like that.

eta: sort of scooped by bagel.

I don't think its that they don't like CLS grads. I think its probably, as RSN noted, a small of CLS students who fit the bill coupled with a lack of sufficiently prominent recommenders compared to other schools,(it could also be that for whatever reason none of the conservative faculty members like going to bat for students which would put the clerkship office more at fault).

I'm frankly not interested in the why. It's impossible for anyone to say unless he is Kavanaugh or one of his clerks. The outcomes are what they are. People who want conservative feeder judges should take note.

[RSN]

Dude you have no credibility. Posner has taken one clerk from us. Ever.

Also, Katzmann took a CLS '15, but AFAIK has not taken any since. Are you just making stuff up as you go along? #alternativeclerkships

Okay. Not sure why you feel the need to become so adversarial here. I said I was pushing back on your statement, not that I think you have no credibility, which is a bit harsh. We're all alums here. Perhaps this is best taken off line but I'll respond in brief.

There's a list maintained by the school (or that used to be maintained by the school) that records--imperfectly and non-exhaustively--where CLS alums have gone to clerk recently. Calabresi is on that list. It is not factually accurate to state that the school has never sent him a clerk.

It's difficult to gauge exactly who is with a feeder unless they emerge onto SCOTUS at which point it gets picked up by ATL, which of course only happens in a handful of cases each year. As for Katzmann, though, there's plenty of evidence of a yearly or almost yearly practice of hiring a clerk from CLS, so I'm not sure this is your hill to fight on. Your anecdote is odd: there is someone from CLS currently in chambers with him right now, and there will be another starting soon. Over the past few years, there have been many: this years,
from 2014 OT, 2015, 2000, 2003 2006, 2007, 2009, ect., ect., I'm not going to pull every profile. Kozinski is also fairly regular. As for Posner, he's not regular and I likely overstated, but I'm curious where you're getting your number "just 1." I'm not asking you to prove a negative, just curious what your source is for this information since it conflicts with mine and I have a difficult time thinking of myself as non-reputable.

I'm a bit confused how you're being so sloppy here. That 2015 link you posted was to someone in Livingston's chambers, not Katzmann's.

because I'm trying to do this on my phone while walking home from work to prove a point and was just grabbing links. my mistake.

why do you seem so embittered about columbia's clerkship program? many of us have gotten clerkships with good judges. i'm not denying the clerkship program could be vastly improved. but its not like there's this wide swathe of judges that simply refuse to interview candidates from the school

Based on his posts last time this came up, he's a FedSoc guy bitter that he went to too liberal of a school and wasn't able to get a spot with Kavanaugh/Wilkinson/Sutton/the Reagan nominees on D.C. Cir. on the way to a gig with Roberts or Thomas, despite his Kent grades and winning personality, and now he blames the school's admittedly mediocre clerkship resources. I don't know that it's untrue that some of those judges don't really interview Columbia people, but the idea that it's because of something to do with the Columbia administration's reputation seems pretty weak to me, as opposed to e.g. lack of conservative faculty.

You could even qualify that to say lack of a conservative faculty that are household names in conservative legal circles. GULC only has three conservatives on its faculty but two of them are Randy Barnett and Nick Rosenkranz,(both of whom are very prominent conservative legal thinkers whose recommendations would probably carry a lot more weight than Hamburger or Bobbitt)

I would add to this that I would guess NYU, Penn, Boalt, Michigan aren't sending too many to Kethledge, Pryor, Griffith et al. either. The data isn't public so I don't know for sure, but my guess is they're mostly hiring from HLS, UVA, and Chicago, and maybe the top 1% of the class from their state schools (I have no idea how that works) -- because that's where conservative students and faculty are.

[lawlorbust]

What are y'all even arguing about? Aren't we all in agreement that the clerkship support is lacking?

Yeah, but this guy's trying to say that some of his conservative dream judges hate Columbia, and while our resources might be less than they could be, the claim that it's animus-based is hard to believe without evidence.

Maybe saying our crappy clerkship office is solely responsible for these judges not hiring CLS grads is hyperbolic, but his experience is valid IMO. If conservative judges don't like hiring from us for whatever reason, that's a valid thing to consider for 0Ls who might be interested in something like that.

eta: sort of scooped by bagel.

I don't think its that they don't like CLS grads. I think its probably, as RSN noted, a small of CLS students who fit the bill coupled with a lack of sufficiently prominent recommenders compared to other schools,(it could also be that for whatever reason none of the conservative faculty members like going to bat for students which would put the clerkship office more at fault).

I'm frankly not interested in the why. It's impossible for anyone to say unless he is Kavanaugh or one of his clerks. The outcomes are what they are.

I'm sure the theory carries some weight, but just to observe some factors that cut against "it's just the conservative judges" --

1) Conservative judges don't necessarily screen for conservative clerks. Compare say, Kavanaugh and Wilkinson versus Sutton and Pryor.
2) Columbia can't be meaningfully more liberal than H,Y,S,N,M,P or B (i.e. any school not Chicago or Virginia).
3) From the Handbook posted above, the school seems to punch below its weight for non-conservative judges too (other than the "hometown" judges).

[jbagelboy]

Dude you have no credibility. Posner has taken one clerk from us. Ever.

Also, Katzmann took a CLS '15, but AFAIK has not taken any since. Are you just making stuff up as you go along? #alternativeclerkships

Okay. Not sure why you feel the need to become so adversarial here. I said I was pushing back on your statement, not that I think you have no credibility, which is a bit harsh. We're all alums here. Perhaps this is best taken off line but I'll respond in brief.

There's a list maintained by the school (or that used to be maintained by the school) that records--imperfectly and non-exhaustively--where CLS alums have gone to clerk recently. Calabresi is on that list. It is not factually accurate to state that the school has never sent him a clerk.

It's difficult to gauge exactly who is with a feeder unless they emerge onto SCOTUS at which point it gets picked up by ATL, which of course only happens in a handful of cases each year. As for Katzmann, though, there's plenty of evidence of a yearly or almost yearly practice of hiring a clerk from CLS, so I'm not sure this is your hill to fight on. Your anecdote is odd: there is someone from CLS currently in chambers with him right now, and there will be another starting soon. Over the past few years, there have been many: this years,
from 2014 OT, 2015, 2000, 2003 2006, 2007, 2009, ect., ect., I'm not going to pull every profile. Kozinski is also fairly regular. As for Posner, he's not regular and I likely overstated, but I'm curious where you're getting your number "just 1." I'm not asking you to prove a negative, just curious what your source is for this information since it conflicts with mine and I have a difficult time thinking of myself as non-reputable.

I'm a bit confused how you're being so sloppy here. That 2015 link you posted was to someone in Livingston's chambers, not Katzmann's.

because I'm trying to do this on my phone while walking home from work to prove a point and was just grabbing links. my mistake.

why do you seem so embittered about columbia's clerkship program? many of us have gotten clerkships with good judges. i'm not denying the clerkship program could be vastly improved. but its not like there's this wide swathe of judges that simply refuse to interview candidates from the school

Based on his posts last time this came up, he's a FedSoc guy bitter that he went to too liberal of a school and wasn't able to get a spot with Kavanaugh/Wilkinson/Sutton/the Reagan nominees on D.C. Cir. on the way to a gig with Roberts or Thomas, despite his Kent grades and winning personality, and now he blames the school's admittedly mediocre clerkship resources. I don't know that it's untrue that some of those judges don't really interview Columbia people, but the idea that it's because of something to do with the Columbia administration's reputation seems pretty weak to me, as opposed to e.g. lack of conservative faculty.

Agree completely. And honestly if Judges were choosing not to interview/hire people from CLS, one would think it would be based primarily on the quality of past CLS clerks being poor,(which I don't believe) and not on the ineptitude of the administration. I think ideology and lack of connections, coupled with the poor clerkship office, is what causes CLS grads to be underrepresented in prominent conservative COA chambers.

I think that's right. You can probably count on one hand the number of students attending Columbia at any given time who have both (1) the grades for COA clerkships, especially for these big conservative feeders, and (2) the correct ideological orientation for them. That's also true of conservative faculty members (we literally have less than five, last I checked).

So I guess the takeaway from this is that if your end all be all goal in law school and life is a conservative feeder on your way to a conservative SCOTUS clerkship, maybe CLS isn't the best place for you, and you should probably be trying to go to UVA or Chicago if you can't get into YHS. I think most people recognize that when they're choosing schools, though, so this just doesn't come up that much, except for our embittered friend here.

good points

[FascinatedWanderer]

What are y'all even arguing about? Aren't we all in agreement that the clerkship support is lacking?

Yeah, but this guy's trying to say that some of his conservative dream judges hate Columbia, and while our resources might be less than they could be, the claim that it's animus-based is hard to believe without evidence.

Maybe saying our crappy clerkship office is solely responsible for these judges not hiring CLS grads is hyperbolic, but his experience is valid IMO. If conservative judges don't like hiring from us for whatever reason, that's a valid thing to consider for 0Ls who might be interested in something like that.

eta: sort of scooped by bagel.

I don't think its that they don't like CLS grads. I think its probably, as RSN noted, a small of CLS students who fit the bill coupled with a lack of sufficiently prominent recommenders compared to other schools,(it could also be that for whatever reason none of the conservative faculty members like going to bat for students which would put the clerkship office more at fault).

I'm frankly not interested in the why. It's impossible for anyone to say unless he is Kavanaugh or one of his clerks. The outcomes are what they are.

I'm sure the theory carries some weight, but just to observe some factors that cut against "it's just the conservative judges" --

1) Conservative judges don't necessarily screen for conservative clerks. Compare say, Kavanaugh and Wilkinson versus Sutton and Pryor.
2) Columbia can't be meaningfully more liberal than H,Y,S,N,M,P or B (i.e. any school not Chicago or Virginia).
3) From the Handbook posted above, the school seems to punch below its weight for non-conservative judges too (other than the "hometown" judges).

This.

[RSN]

What are y'all even arguing about? Aren't we all in agreement that the clerkship support is lacking?

Yeah, but this guy's trying to say that some of his conservative dream judges hate Columbia, and while our resources might be less than they could be, the claim that it's animus-based is hard to believe without evidence.

Maybe saying our crappy clerkship office is solely responsible for these judges not hiring CLS grads is hyperbolic, but his experience is valid IMO. If conservative judges don't like hiring from us for whatever reason, that's a valid thing to consider for 0Ls who might be interested in something like that.

eta: sort of scooped by bagel.

I don't think its that they don't like CLS grads. I think its probably, as RSN noted, a small of CLS students who fit the bill coupled with a lack of sufficiently prominent recommenders compared to other schools,(it could also be that for whatever reason none of the conservative faculty members like going to bat for students which would put the clerkship office more at fault).

I'm frankly not interested in the why. It's impossible for anyone to say unless he is Kavanaugh or one of his clerks. The outcomes are what they are.

I'm sure the theory carries some weight, but just to observe some factors that cut against "it's just the conservative judges" --

1) Conservative judges don't necessarily screen for conservative clerks. Compare say, Kavanaugh and Wilkinson versus Sutton and Pryor.
2) Columbia can't be meaningfully more liberal than H,Y,S,N,M,P or B (i.e. any school not Chicago or Virginia).
3) From the Handbook posted above, the school seems to punch below its weight for non-conservative judges too (other than the "hometown" judges).

1) Sure, but most students who are not at least fairly conservative are probably not going to target Kavanaugh and Wilkinson either.
2) Maybe not, but like I said, I doubt NYU, Michigan, Penn, Boalt are sending that many more students to conservative feeders than CLS, though I'd love to see data. HYS is a whole different story, and I don't think anyone's suggesting they are or should be comparable in clerkship hiring.
3) I think everyone here agrees on that, we're just particularly reacting to this one guy whose argument that prominent conservative judges have some bias against Columbia seemed more like personal grievance than anything else, and has yet to refute that.