Fed Clerkship Cover Letters/Writing Samples Forum

[Garcia12aj]

I'm a 2L who will likely start submitting my clerkship apps within the next month. I was just wondering if anyone had any tips regarding nuances of clerkship cover letters as opposed to cover letters for a traditional firm job? There may not be any at all, but I just wanted to make sure. Any general cover letter tips are also welcome.

Same question goes for writing samples. All of my professional legal experience thus far has been in-house at 2 different companies. I plan on using a memo a wrote in 1 of those roles and my appellate brief I wrote 1L year for legal research and writing. Thoughts? Should I try to come up with something different? What worked for you?

Thanks!

[Anonymous User]

Re: cover letters. Mention ties if you have them. Don't say you're "unique" for a quality that isn't at all unique. Don't try to be cute or sound annoying. Thoughts differ, but I went for short and to the point.

[Anonymous User]

Re cover letters, two to three sentences is usually sufficient.

My name is C and I am a 2L At Y. I am writing to apply for a clerkship in your Chambers in year X. [insert tie here]. I spoke with former clerk Z who spoke very highly of his time in your chambers for reasons Q, Z. Thank you for your consideration

[Anonymous User]

Re cover letters, two to three sentences is usually sufficient.

My name is C and I am a 2L At Y. I am writing to apply for a clerkship in your Chambers in year X. [insert tie here]. I spoke with former clerk Z who spoke very highly of his time in your chambers for reasons Q, Z. Thank you for your consideration

Opinions are going to differ here a lot. I know that my school suggests longer cover letters. I followed that advice, and it worked for me (will be clerking on district court and then 2/9/DC). Basically the paragraphs are broken down by (1) introductory/ties/who you have talked to about the judge; (2) work/school experience/other relevant character traits; (3) closing.

But again, opinions are likely to diverge on this.

[Goldie]

I just lined up an appellate clerkship.

My cover letters were short. Basically:

Dear Judge XYZ,

I'm a 2L at XYZ school and applying for a clerkship in your chambers for XYZ year. (Sometimes a sentence about my connection to the geography.)

I'm a transfer student, that's why most of my information is from this other school. Here are the names of my recommenders.

Thanks. Let me know if you need anything else.

-Goldie

For my writing sample, I mostly used a 1L brief, but sometimes used a memo from my 1L summer employer.

[Anonymous User]

Fully agree with prior poster that there are two camps on the cover letter front (bare-bones vs. somewhat developed), but I'll add a data point.

I put all the essentials up front in the first paragraph: I'm writing to apply for X Year, I'm a 2L at Y school, I'm ranked Z in my class, and I'm a [position] on Law Review. I figured those are going to be the major boxes most clerks/judges want to see, so I let them see it up front.

I spent a couple extra sentences highlighting my writing skills, for two reasons. One, I had writing-focused work experience before coming to law school, so I thought it offered something more than "developed writing in law school and firm job." Two, I'm not a top-of-class student at a T14; if I were, I think I would have opted to hang my hat on stats and save the space/reading time.

Of course, I don't know how the majority of readers responded to the approach, but I ended up with a CoA position.

As for writing samples, I don't have much input. I was rolling with my 1L brief, whether I liked it or not.

[Anonymous User]

Everyone has a different approach to cover letters, and to be honest I don't think they matter much. But, for that reason, I've literally never seen a cover letter help anyone. I've definitely seen cover letters hurt people. The more you say, the easier it is to say something dumb. So, personally, I'd strongly recommend sticking to something like one of the anons above suggested:

My name is C and I am a 2L At Y. I am writing to apply for a clerkship in your Chambers in year X. [insert tie here]. I spoke with former clerk Z who spoke very highly of his time in your chambers for reasons Q, Z. Thank you for your consideration

Except I'd probably even leave out the "reasons, Q, Z" phrase, because you'll run into trouble if the reasons you give don't happen to match the judge's self-image. (Actually, I'd probably just leave out the "former clerk" sentence altogether.) All of my cover letters were literally, "I am a 3L at X Law School. I write to apply for a clerkship in your chambers for Y Year. Thank you for your time."

On writing samples, there's nothing inherently wrong with using stuff from 1L. But writing samples are incredibly important to many judges, in my experience, so make sure they're your best work and reflect your current legal writing skills. Go back and rewrite the things if you need to. Write clearly and succinctly, get the law right, and proofread the thing until you're sure it doesn't contain a single typo or Bluebooking mistake. Good luck.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I agree that generally applicants err on the side of putting too much in the cover letter. Regurgitating your resume isn't helpful. But if there's something that isn't evident from your resume you might put that in. So I think if you have spoken to a former clerk, or worked with someone who used to work with the judge, or have particular ties to the area, or have some specific (well-founded) reason for wanting to be in that part of the world or work in that jurisdiction, it's worth briefly stating that in the cover letter.

[Anonymous User]

Everyone has a different approach to cover letters, and to be honest I don't think they matter much. But, for that reason, I've literally never seen a cover letter help anyone. I've definitely seen cover letters hurt people. The more you say, the easier it is to say something dumb. So, personally, I'd strongly recommend sticking to something like one of the anons above suggested:

My name is C and I am a 2L At Y. I am writing to apply for a clerkship in your Chambers in year X. [insert tie here]. I spoke with former clerk Z who spoke very highly of his time in your chambers for reasons Q, Z. Thank you for your consideration

Except I'd probably even leave out the "reasons, Q, Z" phrase, because you'll run into trouble if the reasons you give don't happen to match the judge's self-image. (Actually, I'd probably just leave out the "former clerk" sentence altogether.) All of my cover letters were literally, "I am a 3L at X Law School. I write to apply for a clerkship in your chambers for Y Year. Thank you for your time."

On writing samples, there's nothing inherently wrong with using stuff from 1L. But writing samples are incredibly important to many judges, in my experience, so make sure they're your best work and reflect your current legal writing skills. Go back and rewrite the things if you need to. Write clearly and succinctly, get the law right, and proofread the thing until you're sure it doesn't contain a single typo or Bluebooking mistake. Good luck.

Fair about the reasons (but former clerks tend to have a pretty good idea of the judge's image). I do think highlighting that you talked with a former clerk is important because it shows you have invested some time in this application. Basically it's the best tie you can have if you're not from the area, don't have family there, and don't want to move there permanently.

[Anonymous User]

DJ clerk here.

The only specifics I put in were ties if I had them and highlighting the things that demonstrate I'm a good writer. Both of these are hugely important to some judges, including the one I currently clerk for.

When hiring 2 clerks here, we looked for ties and an ability to work well independently (i.e., good writing and analysis that won't require much hand-holding). The CL isn't really important TBH. It's the first interview that oftentimes makes or breaks it.

[Anonymous User]

For what it's worth, I'm adding my own experience to the pile. Lower T14, just got a competitive D. Ct. clerkship (SDNY, DDC, etc), and followed to the letter the barebones method advocated by a lot of people on this forum. E.g. something like this:

Re cover letters, two to three sentences is usually sufficient.

My name is C and I am a 2L At Y. I am writing to apply for a clerkship in your Chambers in year X. [insert tie here]. I spoke with former clerk Z who spoke very highly of his time in your chambers for reasons Q, Z. Thank you for your consideration

I know that some prefer longer cover letters, but I assumed cover letters aren't that important to the ultimate decision and with a lot of places to apply to, it saved a lot of time on not having to tailor every app to different judges.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I think if you're not a star candidate who's going to rise to the top based on stats alone, tailoring to different judges can be really worthwhile. The danger is that the more you write in a cover letter, the more chance you have to screw something up. So it's a balance.

But if you have any way to tailor, I would always suggest tailoring. (Sometimes you're not going to, like when you apply to a judge in an area you have no ties to about whom you know little to whom you have no connection.)

[Anonymous User]

If you're a really marginal (read: you need a semi-miracle to get a clerkship in the first place), don't you think it makes sense to have something more substantial? I feel like the "Harvard-style" is for those who can let their school/gpa/rank speak for itself, at least so far as getting an interview. I mean, if you're top 50% at HYS, and willing to apply broadly, aren't you basically guaranteed plenty of clerkship interviews?