Law Clerk Addict's Blog
We're receiving many reports of judges partially or fully hiring in June and July (particularly in the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits). I'm told that August generally is not very active for clerkship hiring, but let me know if that's not the case. E-mail me at clerking.info.guy@gmail.com. If you're a rising 3L, you should have all of your materials ready to send out by now. By all indications, many judges who typically hire in September have hired early this year. And because of the decrease in law firm jobs, there are more applicants than ever. So apply broadly. Good luck!
Many clerkships will be ending in the next few months. I thought it would be helpful to start an open thread about the job market for lawyers after their clerkships. I'd imagine that it isn't as strong as it was in 2007, but has clerk hiring picked up from this time last year? Are many firms or government agencies recruiting clerks specifically? Have your judges been helpful in finding you jobs? Any tips for people looking for post-clerkship jobs?
Thanks for e-mailing hiring me with hiring news. I've been attempting to add all the new tips, and I'm slowly going through the comments from the past six months to add that news as well. Please e-mail me with any hiring news at clerking.info.guy@gmail.com.
Thanks so much for sending in the news about clerkship hires. I am updating all of the pages, with an emphasis on 2011-12 hires. Please e-mail me the names of the clerks' schools, the term in which they will clerk, and the year they graduated. My e-mail address is clerking.info.guy@gmail.com. I received an e-mail question that I thought I'd ask our expert readers to answer.
I'm slowly but surely going through the comments of the past six months and updating the site. Unfortunately, there are more than 100 courts and just one of me. If you see gaps in the 2011-12 or 2010-11 clerkship listings, feel free to post a new comment in the thread or e-mail me at clerking.info.guy@gmail.com. My primary goal is to update information for the 2011-12 hiring season, since there will be a lot of activity in the next few months, and I want to provide updated and accurate information for clerkship seekers. Also feel free to suggest blog posts the could contain helpful information about clerkship searches.
Which judges have already hired clerks for 2011-12? Of those judges, who is hiring 3L's off-plan? I've also received word of a few judges hiring for 2012-13. So far, much of the early hiring appears to be in the D.C., Second, and Ninth Circuits. Let me know what you're hearing in the comments, or e-mail me at clerking.info.guy@gmail.com.
Greetings. I'm Clerking Info Guy, and I'll be updating Law Clerk Addict for the 2011-12 hiring season. Please send me any tips about recent hires. My e-mail address is clerking.info.guy@gmail.com. I'll also attempt to blog somewhat regularly with clerkship news and tips.
I'm going to be updating the new hire listings over the next week or two, and I will attempt to include any information that has been posted in the comments over the past few months. I'll also add newly confirmed judges. Please let me know if any information is missing or incorrect. And good luck on your clerkship searches!
As promised, the pages for appellate judges have been drastically redesigned. For an example, check out our page for Alex Kozinski.
Below is a summary of what changed:
The Blackbook Legal Blog is teaming up with Law Clerk Addict in its coverage of the clerkship process by cross-posting its "Clerkship Series" posts on Law Clerk Addict. Check out our Day 2 posting.
The Blackbook Legal Blog is teaming up with Law Clerk Addict in its coverage of the clerkship process by cross-posting its "Clerkship Series" posts on Law Clerk Addict. Check out our Day 1 posting.
As mentioned earlier this month and again in the comments to Friday's post, Law Clerk Addict will be getting an update for the 2011-12 cycle, which will likely launch within the next month or two. Things are still fluid and subject to change, but here is what we're considering, in descinding likelihood:
Although the lack of any formal data from this time last cycle makes a comparison difficult, eyeballing the new 2011-12 early hiring list gives the impression that a higher-than-normal amount of hiring activity is currently going on for 2011-12 clerkships (and, in some cases, even 2012-13 clerkships, see, e.g., Chester Straub and Theodore McKee). Notably, virtually all of this early hiring is concentrated on the Second, Third, and D.C. Circuits. Furthermore, many circuit judges (such as Andrew Kleinfeld, Catharina Haynes, and Edith Clement) have recently begun to accept 2011-12 applications on OSCAR. 9/27/09 Update: A commenter notes that Haynes and Clement have both partially hired for 2011-12.
Given the record of number of applicants this year, I wonder if some judges who traditionally do not hire this early are hoping to take advantage of a higher quality, more risk-averse applicant pool that may not be around next cycle.
Well, as most of you know, this is a very big week in the hiring season: 3Ls can finally apply for 2010-11 clerkships beginning tomorrow morning, and on Friday judges will be able to contact those 3Ls to set up interviews. Here is what you can expect on Law Clerk Addict in the near future:
* Because of the sheer volume of expected activity this week and next, expect updates to be relatively sporadic. As promised, the 2010-11 early hiring list will become semi-retired, though some updates will still be made. The best source of breaking news will likely be the individual court pages, which you can access through both the left and right sidebars.
* Although early hiring for 2010-11 is officially over, early hiring has now begun for 2011-12. If last year is any indication, some judges who are interviewing for 2010-11 may extend offers for 2011-12 as well. Accordingly, the 2011-12 early hiring list has now launched, and will be updated until next Labor Day. So, if you are aware of a judge interviewing or otherwise extending offers for 2011-12, please email us or let us know on the court pages.
* While this site launched relatively late this year, we intend to operate year-round. At some point after the 2010-11 season grinds to a halt--probably sometime in October, November, or December--the site will update cycles and primarily cover 2011-12 hiring. We are still not sure about the logistics of this, but it will likely involve resetting the comments and color codes (but all 2010-11 content will be archived and continue to be accessible). More details about this will be posted as the time draws nearer.
Now that we are about a month and a half before the official start of the 3L rush, it is a pretty good time to examine the state of pre-plan hiring.
Let's start with the bad news (well, for 3Ls at least): a whopping 47% of active federal court of appeals judges have engaged in at least some pre-plan hiring activity, with 20% of all COA judges being either completely done with hiring or not hiring at all.
Additional charts and commentary below the fold.
* To reduce clutter and confusion, career clerks have been removed from the demographics listings on court pages, but remain on individual judge pages.
* Judge links on court pages are now color coded based on how far along they are in the 2010-11 hiring process. Judges who are interviewing are listed in green, those who have hired are purple, those who are done are in red, those who are not hiring are in gray, and those who have not done anything or whose status is unknown are in blue.
These changes were based on user suggestions, but we understand that users who comment might not always be representative of users in general. So, if you dislike the changes, please let us know and if there is enough demand we will change things back to how they were before (or try something different).
By popular demand, we have added a chart keeping track of federal judges who hire law students before Labor Day. Unlike the early hiring list, this list 1) is limited to interviews and offers extended to law student applicants and 2) judges are listed regardless of cycle, whereas the early hiring list only lists activity from the current cycle. As usual, please send any additional tips or corrections to lawfirmaddict@gmail.com.
As you can tell from browsing through the comments on the court pages, early hiring is really kicking into high gear, with lots of movement this past week, particularly at the appellate level. Again, for those of you who don't have the time to shift through dozens of comments to get the latest news, you can get a summary of all rumored and confirmed pre-plan hiring at the early hiring page.
Now that an increasing number of judges are beginning to contact applicants, there has been a lot of interest in finding out how to prepare for an interview with a judge. Below are some useful recent (and some not-so-recent) forum threads about the clerkship interview process:
* how do judges evaluate clerk candidates at the interview stage?
* calling courts for interviews
* state supreme court and federal district court interview, prep?
* clerkship interview to offer ratio
* Clerkship interviews in June: On-spot offers? Exploding?
For those interested in how federal district court clerks are hired, as well as their substantive job duties, you might want to check out this very interesting article on that subject. Here is the abstract:
While a number of recent books and articles have closely examined the hiring and utilization of United States Supreme Court law clerks, much less is known about the selection and employment of lower federal court law clerks. This lack of knowledge is particularly pronounced for federal district court law clerks, and the shortage of basic information about such law clerks, combined with the large number of cases processed each year by the federal district courts, suggests that a careful study of federal district court law clerks is long overdue. Using original survey data of 311 active and senior federal district court judges, we take the first step in delineating the institutional rules and norms surrounding the selection and use of law clerks in the federal district courts. Our findings reveal that federal district court judges assign their law clerks a number of substantive job duties, findings which raise important new questions about law clerk influence in the lower federal courts.
It looks like the $250,000 bonuses biglaw doled out to outgoing United States Supreme Court law clerks may now be a thing of the past, thanks to the economic recession.
It seems that 2010-11 hiring on the Ninth Circuit is really starting to pick up, with rumors that Judges John Noonan and James Browning are done and that Judge Ronald Gould has made at least one hire. This is in addition to yesterday's news that Judge Arthur Alarcon is done and last week's news that Judge Consuelo Callahan is done, Judge Stephen Reinhardt has partially hired, and that Judges Dorothy Nelson and Milan Smith are interviewing (in Judge Smith's case, for the last 2010-11 position available).
In related prestigious clerkship news, we received a tip today that Judge Marjorie Rendell (3d Cir.), one of the most sought after clerkships in the Third Circuit, has recently hired a University of Chicago graduate. As usual, please feel free to publicly post your tips on the court comment pages or the notifications page, or to privately submit them by sending an email to lawfirmaddict@gmail.com.
Here are a few interesting tidbits relating to state court clerkships that are too short to justify posts of their own:
* The Massachusetts Committee on Judicial Ethics has issued an advisory opinion informing Massachusetts judges that they are not violating ethical rules by hiring deferred law firm associates as unpaid judicial interns. Hat Tip: Legal Profession Blog.
* A New York law clerk's unilateral decision to require a juror to return to deliberations has resulted in an appellate court reversing a defendant's criminal conviction.
The past couple of days have seen some additional movement on the circuit court clerk hiring front. Some highlights:
* Based on notifications, comments, and other tips, the early hiring list has been updated to indicate that Judges Roger Gregory (4th Cir.) and Arthur Alarcon (9th Cir.) are done, while Rosemary Barkett (11th Cir.), Amalya Kearse (2d Cir.) and Jane Roth (3d Cir.) have partially hired.
* An observant tipster on our Ninth Circuit comments page notes that Judge Marsha Berzon (9th Cir.) updated her OSCAR profile to narrow her class rank requirement from top 10% to top 5%. Perhaps this sudden change is another sign that Dan Filler's prediction about very bad days for 2010-11 clerkship applicants will indeed come to pass.
* Commenters on the Fourth Circuit and Seventh Circuit comment pages have indicated that Judge Paul Niemeyer (4th Cir.) will begin interviewing in July and that Judge Diane Sykes (7th Cir.) will begin reviewing applications later this month. However, given that these tips are anonymous, feel free to take them with a grain of salt.
This weekend has been rather active on the circuit court judge hiring front, with reports of hires by Judges Stephen Reinhardt (9th Cir.), Consuelo Callahan (9th Cir.), Eugene Davis (5th Cir.), and Roger Gregory (4th Cir.), and scheduled interviews by Dorothy Nelson (9th Cir.) and Harris Hartz (10th Cir.).
For more information on who is hiring early for the 2010-11 term, check out the early hiring list.
For those who still aren't aware, Law Clerk Addict is tracking pre-September hires through a moderated early hiring list. As you can see, there has been a non-trivial amount of 2010-11 hiring activity over the past week or so. Some selected highlights:
* Judge Jerry Smith (5th Cir.) is completely off-plan and currently extending interview invitations to rising 3Ls.
* Judges Maryanne Barry (3d Cir.) and Milan Smith (9th Cir.), both of whom hired some alumni applicants for 2010-11 in mid to late 2008, are extending interview invitations to alumni again.
* Judge Joel Dubina (11th Cir.) is reported to be interviewing and allegedly has made at least one hire.
* On the district court front, Judge Charles Breyer (N.D. Cal.), brother to Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, is reportedly done for 2010-11.
Remember, early hiring updates are typically not announced on the front page, so be sure to visit the early hiring list directly to get the most up to date news on the 2010-11 hiring cycle.
A relatively large number of judges have been added to the early hiring list tonight based on a combination of reader tips and OSCAR notices, and several additions previously listed as rumors have been upgraded to confirmed status. Note that the date on the early hiring list represents the approximate date of the listed event, and not the date the judge was added to the list, so the updated listings are scattered all over the list.
Judge Charles E. Erdmann (C.A.A.F.) is currently in the process of hiring a career law clerk. According to the job announcement, Judge Erdmann is looking for someone with bar membership and 4-6 years of litigation experience. Interested applicants should apply before June 5.
I made a similar point in a comment earlier today, but it's worth repeating on the main page, particularly given the large number of new visitors this week:
The 2010-11 early hiring list has been updated to reflect tips we have received that Judge Guido Calabresi (2d Cir.) has partially hired and that Judge Richard Tallman (9th Cir.) is currently conducting interviews. Judge Calabresi is rumored to have hired from Duke and Yale.
On the district court front, rumor has it that Judge Renee Bumb (D.N.J.) is done for 2010-11.
8:05PM UPDATE: According to our notifications section, it appears that libertarian Judge Andrew Kleinfeld (9th Cir.), who has the distinction of being the northern-most federal judge in the nation, may have also began the interviewing process.
I have added new law clerk information for Judge David Smith (3d Cir.), Judge Fortunato Benavides (5th Cir.) and Judge Kim Wardlaw (9th Cir.). Provided that this information is accurate, it would appear that Judge Smith is full for 2010-11, and the early hiring list has accordingly been updated.
As implied from the previous Notices post, Judge Raymond Kethledge (6th Cir.) is not yet full for 2010-11, contrary to our report last week. However, given Judge Kethledge's popularity and penchant for hiring early, it is still recommended that you get your applications in as soon as possible!
The OSCAR listing for Judge Ann Williams (7th Cir.) has recently been edited to remove three of the four previously-listed 2010-11 clerkship positions, and rumor has it that these positions were removed because the positions have been recently filled. Accordingly, I have tentatively added Judge Williams to the early hiring list. If anyone can confirm, debunk, or otherwise comment on this rumor please leave a comment or email lawfirmaddict@gmail.com.
I can now confirm, again, from a very reliable source, that Judge Raymond Kethledge (6th Cir.) is not only completely full for the 2010-11 term, but has also partially hired for 2011-12 (a fact not reflected on OSCAR)! The early hiring list has been updated to reflect Kethledge's status, and I have also put up law school demographic information on his four 2010-11 clerks-to-be.
It should go without saying that if you're interested in Judge Kethledge, and are in the market for a 2011-12 clerkship, you might want to send your application materials in ASAP...
I have been able to confirm from a very reliable source that Judge Jerry Smith (5th Cir.) is now accepting paper clerkship applications for the 2010-11 term, even though (contrary to prior practice) this fact is not yet advertised on OSCAR. Judge Smith is notorious for not complying with the hiring plan and for interviewing law students well before September, so I would speculate that current 2Ls / rising 3Ls should send in their application materials as soon as possible to maximize their chances.
Some quick updates to the Law Clerk Addict's list of judges hiring before the Plan:
* The previously reported rumor that Theodore McKee (3d Cir.) has completed hiring for 2010 has been confirmed. Furthermore, though not reflected on the list (which only covers the 2010-11 hiring season), I have received a reliable tip that Judge McKee has already made one hire for 2011-12.
* These aren't based on new information, but I have updated the list to add older rumors that Allyson Duncan (4th Cir.) and Eugene Davis (5th Cir.) have partially hired and that Peter Fay (11th Cir.) is completely done for the 2010-11 term.
The Associated Press reports today that Supreme Court Justice David Souter has still not hired law clerks for the 2009-10 term. James Perkins at the Committee for Justice blog correctly notes that although Souter is usually late to hire, "this is really late, even for him."
It should go without saying that SCOTUS retirements are notoriously hard to predict, and for all we know Souter is getting a good laugh out of this. Of course, it also goes without saying that it would be great if you could email Law Clerk Addict at lawfirmaddict@gmail.com if you have any information about whether Justice Souter (or any other judge) is interviewing or hiring law clerks for any term.
I am pleased to announce a new tool, Federal Judges Hiring Before the Plan: 2010-11 Clerkship Season, which you can access through the new "hiring" tab.
Under the Law Clerk Hiring Plan, federal judges may not participate in the law clerk hiring process until after Labor Day. Nevertheless, some judges hire early. This page documents which judges interviewed applicants and/or partially or fully completed the 2010-11 hiring process before September 8, 2009. Unlike the notifications section, which operates year-round and is unmoderated, these charts are exclusively maintained by Law Clerk Addict and will not be updated after Labor Day.
For purposes of the chart, a judge's hiring practices are "confirmed" when I receive verifiable information from a reliable source (e.g. chambers, or a law school career services office). All other tips (e.g. anonymous emails)are deemed "rumors" until/unless they are verified. If you would like to report a pre-Plan interview or offer (and yes, we consider interviews with / offers to alumni prior to Labor Day as "pre-Plan" hiring even though such interactions do not violate the Plan) please send an email to lawfirmaddict@gmail.com. Likewise, please email me (or post in the comments section) if any information posted on the hiring table (or any other part of the site) is incorrect or if you can confirm a rumor.
In cast you might not have gotten the hint from yesterday's post, not all federal judicial clerkships are advertised on OSCAR, particularly those with relatively short application windows. A good place to find some of these non-OSCAR clerkships is to view the job announcements at the U.S. Courts website.
What sort of positions can you find there? Currently, federal judges in Florida, Maryland, Nevada, and Ohio are advertising openings for 2009 clerkships.
Two qualifications of this data.
First, "early" means pre-plan. Now, it's not technically "early" to hire graduates pre-plan, but it's a way of distinguishing when judges move and how quickly.
Second, a listing as "not early" may actually mean early. If a judge hires a clerk on August 1, but it is reported on this site on October 1, then it is recorded as "not early," even though it was an early hire. Note, however, that the converse cannot be true, which means that the "early" hiring statistics are a guaranteed minimum.
I've only included clerks hired this year. A two-year clerk in the second year of a clerkship for 2009-2010, for instance, would not be included [but a clerk working a second year would be bracketed]. A career clerk would not be listed.
Feel free to post anonymously. It's not the most readable format, but if you search using Ctrl+F, it makes it extremely easy to find the information you want, all on one page. It's also easy for me to edit, and I don't have to host a Web page.
Law Clerk Addict 2009 is now operating! Hard to believe that the hiring season has begun, but several judges hire two years in advance instead of just one year, and several others have begun searching this spring. Feel free to post any information you have (anonymously, of course) for the 2009-2010 clerkship year over there.
I've only included clerks hired this year. A two-year clerk in the second year of a clerkship for 2008-2009, for instance, would not be included [but a clerk working a second year would be bracketed]. Feel free to post anonymously. It's not the most readable format, but if you search using Ctrl+F, it makes it extremely easy to find the information you want, all on one page. It's also easy for me to edit, and I don't have to host a Web page.