Law Clerk Addict's Blog

Penn (and UVA) To Allow Unlimited Clerkship Applications
Category: Applications Process (2010 Cycle)

UPDATE 4:55PM: According to Above the Law, the University of Virginia has adopted the same policy "[i]n light of what promises to be a competitive clerkship season."


If anyone still possessed any residual doubts that this cycle will be a very tough time to apply for federal clerkships, the following email from the University of Pennsylvania Law School raising clerkship application limit from 100 OSCAR or paper judges to unlimited OSCAR judges and 75 paper judges should eliminate any remaining uncertainty:


***

JUDGE LIMIT POLICY


In light of the current market conditions and the expectation that the competition for clerkships this year will be greater than in the past, CPP and the Faculty Clerkship Committee decided to reconsider the 100 judge limit and have agreed to the following new limit: Applicants will be limited to 75 paper applications. There is no limit on the number of OSCAR judges you may apply to.


The committee expects that you will keep the number of your applications at a reasonable level, that you will do appropriate research before adding a judge to your list, and that you will not apply to a judge for whom you would not be willing to clerk (based on what you can discern from the paper record).



Posted by clurker at July 15, 2009, 9:39 AM 8 Comments.

Comments for Penn (and UVA) To Allow Unlimited Clerkship Applications


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 stop the fear mongering

Jul 15, 2009, 10:29 AM 
#1

"If anyone still possessed any residual doubts that this cycle will be a very tough time to apply for federal clerkships..." It's commentary like this that is totally unnecessary.

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 School Name

Jul 15, 2009, 10:37 AM 
#2

It's called the University of Pennsylvania State, thank you very much.

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 Re: #1

Jul 15, 2009, 10:41 AM 
#3

It's not fear mongering if it's true.

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 fear mongering

Jul 15, 2009, 10:55 AM 
#4

It is fear mongering if there's commentary that tries to scare people. Especially when it's not really based on anything more than speculation. First, just because schools are making it easier to apply for clerkships doesn't mean that "this cycle will be a very tough time to apply for federal clerkships." The application limits that schools impose (usually) only mean that the school will pay for a certain # of applications, which doesn't stop students anyway. Also, blindly sending off more applications is pretty pointless. 90% of clerkship positions go to students who have connections, a prof calling on their behalf, etc. Most applications never get read.


 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 Dead wrong

Jul 15, 2009, 11:00 AM 
#5

Maybe your chambers doesn't read most applications and hires solely based on connections, but that's far from representative. You're nuts if you think this cycle won't be tough.

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 Wrong #4

Jul 15, 2009, 11:03 AM 
#6

Penn enforced the 100 judge limit by not sending letters of recommendation, so it certainly did stop students from applying to excess judges. This change is huge and will have profound implications on application volume even beyond the state of the economy. Essentially there is no downside whatsoever for a Penn student to apply to every judge on OSCAR now.

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 eh

Jul 15, 2009, 11:07 AM 
#7

usually the most competitive applicants apply for clerkships anyway, so having a bunch of median kids applying isn't going to make much of a difference.


 – Anonymous (Unregistered)

 
 

 Competitive kids get shut out

Jul 15, 2009, 11:14 AM 
#8

Competitive kids get shut out of clerkships all the time because they applied to the wrong judges or markets. You can't see how being able to apply to 500 judges as opposed to only 100 judges makes things a lot worse for everyone else?

 – Anonymous (Unregistered)