With the recent discussion about advice to aspiring federal law clerks, I thought I might drop my quick thoughts on what federal judges may be looking for when they hire clerks (having hired law clerks as a federal district court judge for the last five years).
Judges are basically hiring law clerks to do one thing: write. Judges assign law clerks to produce written orders and opinions and the like, so applicants would be well advised to show they chave the skills to carry out such assignments. Thus, the "writing sample" is one of the most important things in the application. A published law review note is one way to establish writing skills. But notes often have often undergone so much editing that they have an "institutional" feel to them and leave the reader wondering how much writing was done by the author and how much was done by the editorial staff. An unedited draft note or an unedited law firm memo may help put these concerns to one side.
Judges also looking for someone with good judgment. Law clerks are going to be the eyes and ears of the judge in reading briefs and researching cases. Someone who can spot the tough issue (or the easy issue, for that matter) is obviously much to be desired.
Judges are finally looking for someone who will fit in well for a year. A judicial chambers is a small operation, typically comprising the judge, one or two permanent staff, and a couple of clerks. Throw an abrasive person into that mix and you have a recipe for a bad year. Judges (no less than other employers) are very risk adverse and want to make sure that they are getting someone who won't be a monkey wrench in the machinery.
In light of all this, I don't think taking particular law school courses is valuable. Of course, an aspiring clerk should avoid taking a bunch of Mickey Mouse "Law & ...." courses, but instead should get courses of real substance. But beyond that, there is only one course I would recommend for aspiring federal clerks: Federal Jurisdiction. Federal jurisdiction is very complex and tough to pick up on the fly. This is the one course on a resume that usually caught my eye. (I suspect that for state Supreme Court Justices one class would be attractive: state constitutional law, an extremely important yet underappreciated subject.)
I would also strongly recommend getting to know one or two professors well. Because judges don't want to hire a dud (or, worse, a problem), they tend to rely on people they know well. For example, I tended to hire almost exclusively from my home state schools (Utah and BYU) or my alma mater (Stanford) because I knew the professors at these schools wouldn't let me down by recommending a problematic applicant. We were in a long-term relationship, which meant they would candidly tell me when someone who was good "on paper" was not going to fit in well.
Ideology was never a big factor for me. Perhaps it is different in the courts of appeals, but 99% of district court work just isn't political. As a result, I asked only one question along these lines: Would you have any problem working for a reputedly "conservative" judge? Invariably the answer was "no", and that was good enough for me.
Update: As a "take-home exercise" for aspiring law clerks, I have intentionally left several typographical and grammatical errors in this post so that they can practice their editting, er, editing skills and show that they are not risk adverse, er, averse to hard work. :)
Do I get the job?
HA-ha
The beginning of paragraph 4: "Judges are finally looking for..." would probably read more nicely if you started it "Finally, judges are looking for..."
Yeah, we're picking nits about a very informal blog posting :-) I wouldn't even have noticed in other circumstances, but the subject is one that calls out to the hidden shame of the lurking grammar Nazi in some of us.
As for the typos and grammatical errors that others have reported already, I have seen so many typos and malformed sentences in my casebooks that the occasional error is no big deal to me. Besides, this posting is on a blog, not in a law review article. But I'm just a 2L, what do I know.
Did you hew closely to the federal clerk hiring plan? And what was your sense of what other judges did? Since you mention that often your professor contacts were a big factor in hiring students.
I now feel great about the hiring season.
You left out the word "Economics". ;-)
No offense, but did you really think that anyone who had gotten that far in the process would say "yes," or even hesitate?
The decision should always be the judges. The judge swore an oath to the constitution and the constitution vests the judicial power in the judges, not in the clerks. In the chambers where I clerked, the decision itself, on every order, was the judges.
The clerks still had a very large influence. The judge would talk to us. Read what we wrote, in addition to the partys' briefs and memos, and would trust us for information and honest opinions. Decisions would come after discussion, a memo, and draft opinions. In many cases, the writing of an order would be completely the clerk's, but the decision (at least in the chamber where I worked) was always the judges, in all details.
Judges are basically hiring law clerks to do one thing:
wWrite. Judges assign law clerks to produce written orders and opinions and the like, so applicants would be well advised to show theychave the skills to carry out such assignments. Thus, the "writing sample" is one of the most important things in the application. A published law review note is one way to establish writing skills. But notes often have often undergone so much editing that they have an "institutional" feel to them and leave the reader wondering how much writing was done by the author and how much was done by the editorial staff. An unedited draft note or an unedited law firm memo may help put these concerns to one side.Judges also looking for someone with good judgment. Law clerks are going to be the eyes and ears of the judge in reading briefs and researching cases. Someone who can spot the tough issue (or the easy issue, for that matter) is obviously much to be desired.
Judges are finally looking for someone who will fit in well for a year. A judicial chambers is a small operation, typically comprising the judge, one or two permanent staff, and a couple of clerks. Throw an abrasive person into that mix and you have a recipe for a bad year. Judges (no less than other employers) are very risk a
dverse and want to make sure that they are getting someone who won't be a monkey wrench in the machinery.In light of all this, I don't think taking particular law school courses is valuable. Of course, an aspiring clerk should avoid taking a bunch of Mickey Mouse "Law &...
." courses, but instead should get courses of real substance. But beyond that, there is only one course I would recommend for aspiring federal clerks: Federal Jurisdiction. Federal jurisdiction is very complex and tough to pick up on the fly. This is the one course on a resume that usually caught my eye. (I suspect that for state Supreme Court Justices one class would be attractive:sState constitutional law, an extremely important yet underappreciated subject.)I would also strongly recommend getting to know one or two professors well. Because judges don't want to hire a dud (or, worse, a problem), they tend to rely on people they know well. For example, I tended to hire almost exclusively from my home state schools (Utah and BYU) or my alma mater (Stanford) because I knew the professors at these schools wouldn't let me down by recommending a problematic applicant. We were in a long-term relationship, which meant they would candidly tell me when someone who was good "on paper" was not going to fit in well.
Ideology was never a big factor for me. Perhaps it is different in the courts of appeals, but 99% of district court work just isn't political. As a result, I asked only one question along these lines: Would you have any problem working for a reputedly "conservative" judge? Invariably the answer was "no", and that was good enough for me.
Update: As a "take-home exercise" for aspiring law clerks, I have intentionally left several typographical and grammatical errors in this post so that they can practice their edi
tting, er, editing skills and show that they are notrisk adverse, er,averse to hard work. :)Editing services provided by an engineer, disproving the assertion that engineers are illiterate.
At the district court level, law clerks must also play well with attorneys (of course the extent of such interactions varies by judge). Demeanor and behavior that passes muster in chambers neverthless may make the court look unprofessional to attorneys.
Unlike the others identifying errors, I thought the rare, correct, usage of "problematic" deserves commendation.
of the nature of a problem; doubtful; uncertain; questionable.
I think that this kind of good-ol'-boyism should be discouraged in the courts. Elitism, cronyism, and good-ol'-boyism are reasons for the grotesque overrepresentation of Ivy League law school grads on the current Supreme Court -- all but one justice is an Ivy League law school grad.
Also, I wish these people wouldn't be called "clerks" -- it creates confusion because people who maintain the court records are also called clerks.
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