Hi All,
as a 0L becoming a 1L in the fall, i'm researching career goals. I'm going to a regional state school because 1. I fucking dont want to be 200k in debt of loans, so scholly from here is very nice 2. I don't want to do biglaw.
I've researched the life of a law clerk, and truthfully, it appeals to me a lot. I feel like it's an academic position almost.
Is it possible to be a Law Clerk for a career? Due to going to a regional school (Which has a strong success rate in placing clerkships throughout the state) do you think this option would be feasible, and if so, after 5-6 years of doing it, would land me a 70k+ salary?
Permenant Law Clerk position? Forum
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A. Nony Mouse
- Posts: 29293
- Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 11:51 am
Re: Permenant Law Clerk position?
It is possible to be a career clerk (if you mean law clerk to a judge). It's generally a very humane gig (depends on the judge, of course) in that the hours are often very regular. And if you get a career clerk position in the federal system, you can make decent money (not biglaw money, but 6 figures - google JSP payscale). The downsides are that there aren't a lot of permanent openings (federal judges are limited in how many career clerks they can hire), your job security depends pretty much entirely on your judge (so if they retire/die, you're out of a job), and it can be hard to move into another kind of job after - I think the assumption is that someone who has spent a significant amount of time as a career clerk is not going to adjust well to other legal jobs because clerking is pretty unlike most other jobs (except maybe appellate litigation, which very very few people get to do for a living). State clerkships are likely to pay way less.
To be happy, I would also say that you also have to really like/get along with your judge (though to be honest, IME most judges hiring career clerks either know them already or vet them reeeeally carefully, so this probably isn't hard to accomplish), as well as the other people in chambers (chambers are small/autonomous enough that if you don't get along with the other people in chambers, it's not much fun).
You also have to be okay with being behind the scenes, never having your name on anything, and responding to what other people do in court rather than going into court yourself. (You may well be - and that's totally great - I just know that in two years I got tired of watching other people practice and was eager to get into practice myself, and I know other former clerks who feel that way. Obviously not everyone will, but I throw it out there.)
Similar to career clerk positions are staff attorney positions, in that you spend your days researching/writing in response to litigation or appeals. They're different in that you usually work for the court as a whole rather than for a specific judge (which has its ups and downs), and you are likely to work on more routine/less complex cases, and specialize in something. For instance, my state's court of appeals staff attorneys do all the unemployment, social security, and workers' comp appeals, because the same kinds of issues arise over and over again (so a given staff attorney might spend half their time on unemployment claims and half on workers' comp); federal district courts are fairly likely to have staff attorneys who do nothing but pro se prisoner cases.
To be happy, I would also say that you also have to really like/get along with your judge (though to be honest, IME most judges hiring career clerks either know them already or vet them reeeeally carefully, so this probably isn't hard to accomplish), as well as the other people in chambers (chambers are small/autonomous enough that if you don't get along with the other people in chambers, it's not much fun).
You also have to be okay with being behind the scenes, never having your name on anything, and responding to what other people do in court rather than going into court yourself. (You may well be - and that's totally great - I just know that in two years I got tired of watching other people practice and was eager to get into practice myself, and I know other former clerks who feel that way. Obviously not everyone will, but I throw it out there.)
Similar to career clerk positions are staff attorney positions, in that you spend your days researching/writing in response to litigation or appeals. They're different in that you usually work for the court as a whole rather than for a specific judge (which has its ups and downs), and you are likely to work on more routine/less complex cases, and specialize in something. For instance, my state's court of appeals staff attorneys do all the unemployment, social security, and workers' comp appeals, because the same kinds of issues arise over and over again (so a given staff attorney might spend half their time on unemployment claims and half on workers' comp); federal district courts are fairly likely to have staff attorneys who do nothing but pro se prisoner cases.
