Best and worst judges to clerk for Forum

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Jun 14, 2019 8:51 am

Anonymous User wrote:Any insights re: S.D.FL judges?
There are many. Who do you have in mind?

Quichelorraine

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Quichelorraine » Fri Jun 14, 2019 2:42 pm

Anonymous User wrote: That being said, the Great Sixth Circuit Disturbance of 2002 was a legitimately big deal. People who clerked on CA6 that term have some pretty crazy stories.

I for one would love you to tender some anonymous hearsay, kind sir/madam.

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Jun 15, 2019 12:41 pm

If your judge is an objectively bad boss/judge, should you let your CSO (or anyone else, such as people interested in applying) know, or should you just say vague, moderately positive things when asked about your experience?

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Jun 18, 2019 12:46 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:Does anyone know anything about the active-status Texas CA5 judges (Jones, Smith, Elrod, Haynes, Willett, Ho, Oldham)?
Willett, Ho, and Elrod are wonderful to clerk for. Don’t know about the others for sure, but have heard good things about all except Oldham (and that’s just because I haven’t heard anything about him one way or the other).
All are supposed to be awesome. All hire before 1L finishes except for Oldham, but he is so new that he may just not have had the chance to pick up that trend yet.
Update: Oldham has hired at least some for 2021.

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Jun 20, 2019 4:35 pm

Quichelorraine wrote:
Anonymous User wrote: That being said, the Great Sixth Circuit Disturbance of 2002 was a legitimately big deal. People who clerked on CA6 that term have some pretty crazy stories.

I for one would love you to tender some anonymous hearsay, kind sir/madam.
In which a recent Sixth Circuit clerk argues that panel assignments have been affected for years based on the Great Disturbance: http://www.kentuckylawjournal.org/wp-co ... icle-2.pdf

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BlackAndOrange84

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by BlackAndOrange84 » Thu Jun 20, 2019 7:19 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Quichelorraine wrote:
Anonymous User wrote: That being said, the Great Sixth Circuit Disturbance of 2002 was a legitimately big deal. People who clerked on CA6 that term have some pretty crazy stories.

I for one would love you to tender some anonymous hearsay, kind sir/madam.
In which a recent Sixth Circuit clerk argues that panel assignments have been affected for years based on the Great Disturbance: http://www.kentuckylawjournal.org/wp-co ... icle-2.pdf
Read as much of Judicial Politics in Polarized times from page 141 as you can. What's been publicly aired through judicial opinions and congressional and ethics investigations is amazing: https://books.google.com/books?id=ptoUB ... nt&f=false

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Jun 20, 2019 7:40 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Quichelorraine wrote:
Anonymous User wrote: That being said, the Great Sixth Circuit Disturbance of 2002 was a legitimately big deal. People who clerked on CA6 that term have some pretty crazy stories.

I for one would love you to tender some anonymous hearsay, kind sir/madam.
In which a recent Sixth Circuit clerk argues that panel assignments have been affected for years based on the Great Disturbance: http://www.kentuckylawjournal.org/wp-co ... icle-2.pdf
Oh wow. This is wild.

Also whoa Siler is busy for a senior judge

lavarman84

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by lavarman84 » Fri Jun 21, 2019 6:15 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
Quichelorraine wrote:
Anonymous User wrote: That being said, the Great Sixth Circuit Disturbance of 2002 was a legitimately big deal. People who clerked on CA6 that term have some pretty crazy stories.

I for one would love you to tender some anonymous hearsay, kind sir/madam.
In which a recent Sixth Circuit clerk argues that panel assignments have been affected for years based on the Great Disturbance: http://www.kentuckylawjournal.org/wp-co ... icle-2.pdf
Oh wow. This is wild.

Also whoa Siler is busy for a senior judge
Yep, Siler stays very busy.

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Jul 12, 2019 8:15 pm

Any thoughts on the Obama EDNY appointees, esp. those who would have been appointed after this was last asked on this thread (around 2013)?

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Jul 12, 2019 11:26 pm

Speaking as a former EDNY clerk, most of the Obama appointees have reputations as good bosses and jurists, to varying degrees. Judge Chen's clerks seemed like they had a particularly good experience. The only one I would avoid is Judge Kuntz. But take all this with a grain of salt; district court clerkships are pretty siloed, so while EDNY is a pretty friendly place you never know what's going on in another chambers unless you have a good friend there. I would also add that the Clinton appointees who have taken senior status mostly still have a full docket, just no longer take certain categories of cases, and are known as good bosses (though I've heard Judge Block has been known to fire clerks). I also wouldn't rule out Judge Matsumoto just because she was a W appointee.

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Jul 13, 2019 8:41 am

Going to echo not ruling out Matsumoto. I understand she's great to work with and her appointment came after time as a prosecutor and a magistrate judge, so more of a competency than a political appointment.

nixy

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by nixy » Sat Jul 13, 2019 9:12 am

Anonymous User wrote:Going to echo not ruling out Matsumoto. I understand she's great to work with and her appointment came after time as a prosecutor and a magistrate judge, so more of a competency than a political appointment.
I can't comment on Matusmoto specifically, but I think this is true for a lot of judges - their political affiliation is what it is, but most of them just want to do the job and get it right, not promote a particular agenda. This may be less true at the COA level, but especially in the district court, the law is often actually pretty clear, and you just need to figure out which party falls on which side of it, and it's not really a political process. Obviously not *every* judge is like this, but I think many if not most are.

(That said, I'm also assuming the original question about Obama appointees wasn't so much a political question as it was a question about appointments recent enough that we don't have as much info about them as bosses. But I mention the above in case the politics was a concern.)

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Jul 13, 2019 10:04 am

Obama/EDNY anon here:

Yep, was mostly asking to get new information, I’m aware that especially at the district level, things aren’t particularly “ideological”.

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Jul 13, 2019 9:50 pm

Anonymous User wrote:Speaking as a former EDNY clerk, most of the Obama appointees have reputations as good bosses and jurists, to varying degrees. Judge Chen's clerks seemed like they had a particularly good experience. The only one I would avoid is Judge Kuntz. . . .

What have you heard about Kuntz?

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Sep 02, 2019 11:16 pm

Anonymous User wrote:Speaking as a former EDNY clerk, most of the Obama appointees have reputations as good bosses and jurists, to varying degrees. Judge Chen's clerks seemed like they had a particularly good experience. The only one I would avoid is Judge Kuntz. But take all this with a grain of salt; district court clerkships are pretty siloed, so while EDNY is a pretty friendly place you never know what's going on in another chambers unless you have a good friend there. I would also add that the Clinton appointees who have taken senior status mostly still have a full docket, just no longer take certain categories of cases, and are known as good bosses (though I've heard Judge Block has been known to fire clerks). I also wouldn't rule out Judge Matsumoto just because she was a W appointee.
what have you heard about Judge Block? I have a friend clerking with him in the future

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Sep 03, 2019 12:27 pm

Anonymous User wrote:what have you heard about Judge Block? I have a friend clerking with him in the future
In line with the discussion above, he has hired far left clerks--the sort of people who get off on making ideologically extreme political statements on social media. IDK how this reflects upon his alignment.

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Sep 03, 2019 1:20 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:what have you heard about Judge Block? I have a friend clerking with him in the future
In line with the discussion above, he has hired far left clerks--the sort of people who get off on making ideologically extreme political statements on social media. IDK how this reflects upon his alignment.
Is he tough to work for? My friend is definitely left leaning, but not extreme

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Sep 03, 2019 1:56 pm

Is he tough to work for? My friend is definitely left leaning, but not extreme
My law school's clerkship office implied he had A Reputation, but never quite made clear what the reputation was for, exactly. I know a recent clerk of his who had only glowing things to say (and isn't the kind of person who'd sugarcoat a bad experience).

He does a lot of sitting on the Ninth Circuit by designation these days.

LBJ's Hair

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by LBJ's Hair » Tue Sep 10, 2019 1:37 pm

Anonymous User wrote:I also wouldn't rule out Judge Matsumoto just because she was a W appointee.
She was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, spent 4 years previously as a magistrate before going Article III (so like, in the "experienced and uncontroversial" bucket), and has a relationship with Justice Sotomayor. There are 1000% judges in SDNY/EDNY who are right-of-center/originalist-textualists, but Matsumoto is not one of them.

No in-the-know FedSoc clerkship applicant has Matsumoto on his/her list as sympathetic to the org.

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Oct 20, 2019 8:50 pm

What's the lay of the land on the DC Circuit, especially going beyond the top feeders?

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Oct 23, 2019 6:12 pm

Anonymous User wrote:What's the lay of the land on the DC Circuit, especially going beyond the top feeders?
don't have great data on rao because she's too new. otherwise, some judges might work their chambers a little harder than others (pillard, katsas come to mind), but the only judge for whom i wouldn't work is millett. the workload in her chamber is outrageous, and her success rate for getting supreme court clerks is simply not good enough to merit the amount of time you would have to devote to the job.

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by LBJ's Hair » Wed Oct 23, 2019 8:40 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:What's the lay of the land on the DC Circuit, especially going beyond the top feeders?
don't have great data on rao because she's too new. otherwise, some judges might work their chambers a little harder than others (pillard, katsas come to mind), but the only judge for whom i wouldn't work is millett. the workload in her chamber is outrageous, and her success rate for getting supreme court clerks is simply not good enough to merit the amount of time you would have to devote to the job.
I was gonna tease you a bit for the Millett comment, given that there like ~30 people per class year, across the entire T14, who are in a position to be choosy about *which* DC Circuit clerkship they take.

But did a quick CTRL-F...by my count she's sent 2 clerks, total? given her background/position (she obviously knows the Justices socially), the quality of clerks she's getting..almost seems like she's going out of her way not to support their apps lol

heregoeseverything

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by heregoeseverything » Tue Jan 07, 2020 11:56 pm

Curious is anyone has intel on SD FL judges, particularly the Obama appointees ?

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by QContinuum » Thu Jan 09, 2020 10:44 pm

LBJ's Hair wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:don't have great data on rao because she's too new. otherwise, some judges might work their chambers a little harder than others (pillard, katsas come to mind), but the only judge for whom i wouldn't work is millett. the workload in her chamber is outrageous, and her success rate for getting supreme court clerks is simply not good enough to merit the amount of time you would have to devote to the job.
I was gonna tease you a bit for the Millett comment, given that there like ~30 people per class year, across the entire T14, who are in a position to be choosy about *which* DC Circuit clerkship they take.

But did a quick CTRL-F...by my count she's sent 2 clerks, total? given her background/position (she obviously knows the Justices socially), the quality of clerks she's getting..almost seems like she's going out of her way not to support their apps lol
I don't have any intel on Judge Millett's chambers and this is not intended as an endorsement (or criticism, for that matter) of her chambers. That said, in my view, looking at SCOTUS clerkship success rates isn't necessarily the best metric. A D.C. Circuit clerkship is immensely valuable in and of itself, and in any case, any particular D.C. Circuit clerk still faces long odds in moving "up" to SCOTUS. The median D.C. Circuit clerk will not clerk on SCOTUS. If Judge Millett generally isn't supportive of her (former) clerks - i.e., fails to allow them to benefit from her network, refuses to be a strong recommender - that would be a strong reason not to clerk for her. But if SCOTUS just prefers to take clerks from other judges, or even if Judge Millett idiosyncratically refuses to help her clerks move "up" to SCOTUS (so long as that idiosyncracy is limited to this narrow context), that wouldn't, in my view, be good reason to avoid clerking for her.

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Re: Best and worst judges to clerk for

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Jan 09, 2020 10:58 pm

Any thoughts on Altonaga in S.D. Fla.?

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

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