SCOTUS clerk taking questions about federal clerkships Forum

[Anonymous User]

What do you know about the hiring practices of retired Justices? I recall you mentioned Stephens' short decision-making timeline, but can you share anything you might know about how JPS, Souter, and O'Connor select their annual clerk?

Building on that, any idea how firms, etc. view a clerkship with a retired Justice? Is it treated exactly the same as a clerkship with a sitting Justice?

This is OP.

It is viewed as exactly the same. There isn't even any distinction between the two among SCOTUS clerks themselves. Retired justices generally loan their clerks out to an ideologically compatible chambers. A liberal Stevens clerk might be assigned to Ginsburg or Sotomayor. A conservative O'Connor clerk might go to Kennedy or Alito or even Thomas/Scalia. The retired justices' clerks occasionally help if the retired justices sit on COA panels, which happens sometimes, or with books or speeches or other engagements. But retired justices' clerks are treated 100% like sitting justices' clerks because they do basically the same job.

[Anonymous User]

What kind of grades are we talking about for top 5% at HLS?

Also, the school treats two Hs as the same as a DS and P for gpa purposes - do the justices view them that way too, or is there some number of Ps that's just too many, even with off-setting DSs?

This is OP.

Essentially all Hs.

A highly qualified candidate will be literally all Hs with a few DSes.

This could explain why SLS underperforms: if the expectation of HYS applications is all (or nearly all) Hs, that rules out a ton of otherwise super well qualified SLS folk. E.g., #1 at SLS in a given year may not have all Hs, and the #5 may have 8 Ps.

[Anonymous User]

I know you can't get into too much detail re: Bristows, so feel free to skip this one if it would reveal too much. Does one usually apply for Bristows at the same time as one applies for SCOTUS? Or is it generally accepted that you apply for a Bristow first, and then SCOTUS?

Most SCOTUS candidates apply for Bristows at the same time. But you cannot do SCOTUS then Bristow because, most importantly, SCOTUS clerks are disqualified from matters before the Court for two years after.

[Anonymous User]

What kind of grades are we talking about for top 5% at HLS?

Also, the school treats two Hs as the same as a DS and P for gpa purposes - do the justices view them that way too, or is there some number of Ps that's just too many, even with off-setting DSs?

This is OP.

Essentially all Hs.

A highly qualified candidate will be literally all Hs with a few DSes.

This could explain why SLS underperforms: if the expectation of HYS applications is all (or nearly all) Hs, that rules out a ton of otherwise super well qualified SLS folk. E.g., #1 at SLS in a given year may not have all Hs, and the #5 may have 8 Ps.

OP, is this true of what Justices expect from Stanford applicants? If not, can you hazard a guess along the same lines of your estimation for HLS?

[Anonymous User]

If you are qualified for CADC you absolutely must apply to every CADC judge.

First, thanks for a great thread, OP.

Is the quoted advice true only if SCOTUS is your one and only life's calling? Going by your rubric toward the beginning of the thread, I'm somewhere between a realistic and strong applicant; I want to push the SCOTUS thing as far as it could go, but have very little interest in living in DC long-term. Is it a big downgrade to do a non-CADC feeder, if you could get one of the DC feeders? Or would a CADC gig transfer well to other markets, were I to get one?

This is OP.

This is possibly the most important question in the thread.

All the advice I am giving is, unless otherwise noted, purely with an eye as to how to maximize your SCOTUS chances. MANY of these choices are foolish or crazy or both. This advice is only for people who have to have SCOTUS and nothing else will do. It is fraught and expensive and you have a 95%+ chance of failure, even if you have amazing grades and great luck. You are spending whole years of your life at a time playing this game. Please do not take my providing advice as endorsing anyone actually making SCOTUS this much a priority.

Essentially every single SCOTUS clerk is both intensely brilliant (at law) and unbelievably fortunate (in life). A few are way more of one on top of that, or way more of the other. But you basically have to be both. Tons of brilliant and talented lawyers get very close and miss. This isn't a cheap game to play. The cost to play is a meaningful fraction of your life.

To answer the on-point question, take a feeder over DC Circuit, but DC Circuit over anything else. DC Circuit is extremely portable to all markets. That's one major advantage of CADC clerkships: extreme portability. (Like SCOTUS clerkships.)

[Anonymous User]

Not the OP, but someone with multiple desirable clerkships and some knowledge:

Re SLS grades, I've been told that the top 5% cutoff varies fairly widely based on the year. E.g., because the class of 2012 was overall a very strong class, Hs were spread more widely than what is standard* and the top 5% cutoff hovered around 70% Hs/As <-> 30% Ps/<A-s (I included letter grades because so many SLS students take classes outside of the law school, and this is what was suggested to me). Obviously book awards complicate things, but my sense is that you would expect around two book awards for a student with grades like this (although the professors who I've spoken with have urged me not to put too much stock in book awards given that many classes -- due to size or tenure or cross-registration issues -- are not even eligible to give out book awards...there was apparently a student within the past five years who was pretty widely considered to be in the top 5 people in his/her class but only had two book awards despite having been the best student in far more than two classes).

*I've heard 75% Hs and As is somewhat more standard for the top 5%.

This is OP. I have nothing to add to this other than to say it is consistent with what I have seen and heard.

[Anonymous User]

What kind of grades are we talking about for top 5% at HLS?

Also, the school treats two Hs as the same as a DS and P for gpa purposes - do the justices view them that way too, or is there some number of Ps that's just too many, even with off-setting DSs?

This is OP.

Essentially all Hs.

A highly qualified candidate will be literally all Hs with a few DSes.

Quick follow up - would it be better / worse / the same to have, say, 8 ds, 7 p, the rest h, or all h with only one ds?

This is OP. This is an extreme example. I would say better all Hs with one DS because SCOTUS is fundamentally a generalist's job. Someone with 8 DSes and 7 Ps reads like a person that is excellent when he cares and average when he does not. That's a risky clerk. 14 Hs and one DS says consistency. Justices like consistency.

But at a much closer margin, say, 12 Hs and 2 Ps and 2 DSes versus 16 Hs versus 14 Hs, 1 P, and 1 DS? It doesn't really matter for anyone but the Chief, who hates Ps and Bs with almost an allergy. Then again, several Justices like to see that a clerk has an exceptional talent for some area of law. Especially if that clerk wants to go into academia.

So say the close case goes to all Hs. But no serious concerns either way, until you get into the 8 DSes, 7 Ps realm.

[Anonymous User]

What kind of grades are we talking about for top 5% at HLS?

Also, the school treats two Hs as the same as a DS and P for gpa purposes - do the justices view them that way too, or is there some number of Ps that's just too many, even with off-setting DSs?

This is OP.

Essentially all Hs.

A highly qualified candidate will be literally all Hs with a few DSes.

This could explain why SLS underperforms: if the expectation of HYS applications is all (or nearly all) Hs, that rules out a ton of otherwise super well qualified SLS folk. E.g., #1 at SLS in a given year may not have all Hs, and the #5 may have 8 Ps.

OP, is this true of what Justices expect from Stanford applicants? If not, can you hazard a guess along the same lines of your estimation for HLS?

This is OP. Everyone here is forgetting that the deans of HLS, YLS, and SLS talk with the Justices directly. It almost doesn't matter what the transcripts say. It matters what Dean Kramer or Dean Minnow say about you. Or McConnell & Tribe, and so on. To the extent we're talking grades, my instinct is 80% Hs at SLS. People know the curve is harder. But the harder curve probably also hurts a little bit.

But again, only a little bit. It's the phone calls that really move applications along.

[Anonymous User]

This is OP. I believe I have answered all outstanding questions. I will only be answering questions below this post now. Please re-post your question if I have not answered it (either directly or because some of the questions are a little repetitive with each other).

[Anonymous User]

What about YLS? (with respect to how many Ps puts you in contention)

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for doing this, OP! Fascinating to read.

This is a more general clerkships/non-SCOTUS question. Do you have a sense of how portable non-feeder, non-CADC COA clerkships are? For example, if someone clerks on the 1st Circuit (not for Boudin, obviously), will employers outside the New England area place much value on it? Will the value vary for biglaw vs. government/other work?

And one more question: For someone with no SCOTUS aspirations (and no hope of it ) would you say it's much of a career boost to do two clerkships - one district and one COA? Or does the loss of income/loss of career-building years in a more permanent position, etc., outweigh the value of two clerkships at the non-elite, non-SCOTUS level?

Thanks for your insight!

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for doing this, OP! Fascinating to read.

This is a more general clerkships/non-SCOTUS question. Do you have a sense of how portable non-feeder, non-CADC COA clerkships are? For example, if someone clerks on the 1st Circuit (not for Boudin, obviously), will employers outside the New England area place much value on it? Will the value vary for biglaw vs. government/other work?

And one more question: For someone with no SCOTUS aspirations (and no hope of it ) would you say it's much of a career boost to do two clerkships - one district and one COA? Or does the loss of income/loss of career-building years in a more permanent position, etc., outweigh the value of two clerkships at the non-elite, non-SCOTUS level?

Thanks for your insight!

This is OP. Non-feeder, non-CADC COA clerkships are nationally portable but not as much as you would expect. Most of your judge's clout will be in his or her circuit and the major cities close to it. This is a little less true for CA1 than most -- CA1 judges often have a lot of sway in NYC and Philadelphia, even though these are CA2 and CA3, of course. Some in DC too. But you don't get as far with a CA10 clerkship out of the region as you'd think. It's still prestigious and still a big deal, and you'll still get hired. But it's not the insta-hire credential you would think. (But inside the circuit, say CA5 trying for a job in Dallas, or CA7 in Chicago, it's pretty much a guaranteed biglaw job.)

For career purposes, I think COA & dist. ct. is much, much wiser than two COA clerkships, even for a feeder in the second one, unless you want SCOTUS. You learn totally different things in COA vs. dist. ct. The loss of income is up to you, and your debt, and your family (if any), and your geographic flexibility. These are really hard decisions. My instinct is that if you're single and not in too much debt you should do a COA and a dist. ct. if you can, ideally with one of them at or near a city you would be ok settling in.

[Anonymous User]

What about YLS? (with respect to how many Ps puts you in contention)

This is OP. YLS is unusually good at this game. Few to none, but you can get away with a couple.

With YLS it's really more about who your COA judge was. YLS is very good about rallying around the people who they place in feeder clerkships, and placing the top part of their class in a position to get a feeder clerkship in the first place.

[Anonymous User]

This is OP. I believe I have answered all outstanding questions. I will only be answering questions below this post now. Please re-post your question if I have not answered it (either directly or because some of the questions are a little repetitive with each other).

Could you comment on Barron, Millett, and Harris? Obviously it would mostly be speculation at this point, but more informed speculation than most.

[Anonymous User]

How much does undergraduate school ranking/prestige matter to the Justices?

[Anonymous User]

This is OP. I believe I have answered all outstanding questions. I will only be answering questions below this post now. Please re-post your question if I have not answered it (either directly or because some of the questions are a little repetitive with each other).

Could you comment on Barron, Millett, and Harris? Obviously it would mostly be speculation at this point, but more informed speculation than most.

This is OP. Basically total speculation. But I'll tell you that almost all COA judges are good people that really care about their clerks. So even flying blind you're probably fine.

[Anonymous User]

How much does undergraduate school ranking/prestige matter to the Justices?

This is OP. It varies wildly. Generally speaking, the liberal justices care much more than the conservative justices about undergrad. This makes sense, if you consider that there's simply a larger pool of elite liberal law students than elite conservative ones, in part because law schools skew very far to the liberal side. So undergrad grades, etc. are a good tiebreaker.

[Anonymous User]

This is OP. I believe I have answered all outstanding questions. I will only be answering questions below this post now. Please re-post your question if I have not answered it (either directly or because some of the questions are a little repetitive with each other).

Could you comment on Barron, Millett, and Harris? Obviously it would mostly be speculation at this point, but more informed speculation than most.

This is OP. Basically total speculation. But I'll tell you that almost all COA judges are good people that really care about their clerks. So even flying blind you're probably fine.

This is not OP. Having worked with Judge Millett at Akin, she is fantastic.

[Anonymous User]

For the transfer students that are hired as SCOTUS clerks, what set these candidates apart to get them the job over other candidates with similar credentials who were not transfer students? Considering transferring now. Thanks OP!

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for doing this, OP. Fascinating so far.

Why do you think there haven't been (m)any clerks from CAFC, even though the Court has taken so many appeals from that circuit in recent years? Does the Court's refusal to accept clerks reflect any relative lack of portability in a CAFC clerkship nationally outside of DC? And any thoughts about its portability for work in an appellate practice group down the line?

[Doorkeeper]

But at a much closer margin, say, 12 Hs and 2 Ps and 2 DSes versus 16 Hs versus 14 Hs, 1 P, and 1 DS? It doesn't really matter for anyone but the Chief, who hates Ps and Bs with almost an allergy. Then again, several Justices like to see that a clerk has an exceptional talent for some area of law. Especially if that clerk wants to go into academia.

So say the close case goes to all Hs. But no serious concerns either way, until you get into the 8 DSes, 7 Ps realm.

A few related questions from your answers to these new questions:
1) Do any justices actively look for/wants clerks that want to go into academia? You mention that "exceptional talent" might be important to several justices.

2) I've noticed that some law professors will take a leave to clerk on the Court. Is the game for them different? If so, what matters when they apply? Are their academic writings/personal connections more important than their circuit clerkship or grades (e.g. Orin Kerr who wasn't on LR and clerked for Garth on the 3rd Cir., but had really good articles right out of the gate as a professor)?

3) You mentioned some YLS specific qualities in their game above on this page (i.e. they're really good at rallying around top people, etc, etc). Can you talk a bit about how HLS and SLS play the game as well?

[hiima3L]

Where in the building do you work? What's it like in chambers in terms of the building?

Are you one of the people that brings a million things to the justices on the bench right before argument?

[Anonymous User]

Feel free to generalize so as not to out yourself, but is there a lot of socializing across chambers? Lot of camaraderie among SCOTUS clerks?

[Anonymous User]

For the transfer students that are hired as SCOTUS clerks, what set these candidates apart to get them the job over other candidates with similar credentials who were not transfer students? Considering transferring now. Thanks OP!

This is OP. If they're truly similar (say, transfer to HYS in top 2% vs. student at HYS that was just top 2%, both LR, both feeders), then probably just luck. My earlier statement was more something like: there is no real anti-transfer bias, you just have only two years to get LR, all the fancy recommenders, the COA clerkship, etc etc. It's harder. You have to check a lot of boxes in not a lot of time.

If you can transfer meaningfully upward: out of t14 to t14, or inside t14 to HYS (or maybe Chicago), you should do it. Again, for SCOTUS purposes. Whether it makes sense otherwise is much more context-specific. I tend to think transferring from outside t14 to t14 is basically always a good idea. Transferring within t14 is murkier.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for doing this, OP. Fascinating so far.

Why do you think there haven't been (m)any clerks from CAFC, even though the Court has taken so many appeals from that circuit in recent years? Does the Court's refusal to accept clerks reflect any relative lack of portability in a CAFC clerkship nationally outside of DC? And any thoughts about its portability for work in an appellate practice group down the line?

This is OP.

"Why doesn't the Supreme Court take more clerks from the circuit it has to constantly reverse for getting patent law wrong?"

At the risk of being disrespectful, I invite you to draw your own conclusion.

For patent purposes, however, CAFC is still the gold standard and approximately on par with SCOTUS.

Wouldn't choose it for generalist appellate practice though. Any other COA clerkship better. It's a distinct trade.