Srinivasan Clerkship? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I give up. Everyone who doesn't go to YHS is an idiot.

This is a thread about clerking for Sri Srinivasan.
eta:
So it's also for people who were top 1 or 2 or 3 students at a t14

e.g. this dude:
https://content.law.virginia.edu/news/2 ... /tyson.htm

"Tyson, who is originally from Mequon, Wisconsin, is the recipient of the Carl M. Franklin Prize, which honors the student with the highest grade point average after the first year of law school, and served on the editorial board of the Virginia Law Review. At graduation, he received the Traynor Prize and Law School Alumni Association Best Note Award for his law review publication. He also received the Faculty Award for Academic Excellence, given to the student with the most outstanding academic record at graduation."

Your anecdotal experience is truth. No one at UVA who isn't 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, can clerk for a feeder. Noted.

[Anonymous User]

This has gotten a bit out of whack. I think it's really school-dependent.

I managed to get an interview with CADC feeder from top 3% at a T6 with basically 0 faculty support as far as calls etc. No one reached out to me and was like, we're gonna help you get a good clerkship.

[mjb447]

"Hey everyone, I finished top third at MVP and am now clerking on the district of New Mexico. I'm just wondering how I go through the SCOTUS clerk application process. I know my chances aren't good, but it's worth a shot!"

this : judicial clerkships forum :: "Hey everyone, help me choose between [bad school no money] and [worse school some money]. Goals are biglaw, eventually impact litigation. Please don't tell me to retake, as it's not really an option for me. Thanks!" : choosing a law school forum

[LurkerTurnedMember]

I heard that someone else heard that people generally hear if you're not a top 3% student at Princeton Law you can't clerk for a feeder.

[mjb447]

I heard that someone else heard that people generally hear if you're not a top 3% student at Princeton Law you can't clerk for a feeder.

I hear that.

[rpupkin]

It's ridiculous to suggest that Judge Srinivasan has no way to distinguish between two YLS applicants with straight Hs. He calls their professors. They will tell him whether or not that applicant wrote a top-scoring exam. That's precisely how it works.

Yes, that is often how it works. Now explain to me like I'm five how this proves that Sri knows who has top 1–2% grades at YLS?

A top 1–2% applicant from YLS will have written at least 3 top-scoring or model exam answers in her ~7 graded 1L classes, assuming straight Hs. Judge Srinivasan can know this because YLS professors are generally willing to disclose to him whether the applicant wrote a top-scoring or model exam answer. He often uses the telephone to uncover this information. But sometimes he uses electronic mail.

(Your counterargument from personal incredulity is, I hope, totally unconvincing to YLS 1Ls reading this thread.)

Here's what happened in this thread: you said something false—i.e., that Judge Srinivasan only hires YLS students who are top 1-2% after 1L. When called out on it, you could have easily responded with something like: "Fair enough, maybe it's not literally top 1-2%, but judges have ways of distinguishing the top students from the good students, and you have to be up there at YLS, or at least have a particularly helpful and influential prof on your side, to have a shot at Sri." But that's not what you said. Instead, you doubled down on your "top 1-2%" assertion, layering exaggeration on top of exaggeration in order to defend it. If anyone is misleading YLS students in this thread, it's you.

I don't expect that many are following this silly debate, but for anyone who cares: Yes, you generally need straight Hs (which is just four graded classes at YLS after 1L) to get an interview with a feeder. And, yes, judges may call some of your professors and learn about your relative performance on an exam. But our little anon friend here suggests that Judge Srinivasan calls/emails all of your professors and learns your informal rank in each class, including your rank in first-semester classes that don't have grades. I seriously doubt any judge calls seven different YLS professors to ask about a given student's exam performance. And even if Judge Srinivasan did this (which he does not), he would find that certain professors would be unwilling to assign a rank/grade/score to the student's exam. Judges are not canvassing all of your YLS professors and then calculating class rank at the granular level of "top 1% or 2%"

For what it's worth, some judges find YLS's opaqueness frustrating. I know of one particularly snobby judge who hires more HLS students than YLS students precisely because he can figure out who is top 1% or 2% or 5% at HLS, but can't do so for YLS. As you can imagine, the blurriness of YLS's grading system makes it especially important to have a couple of influential recommenders on your side. Your exam performance in a particular class is one way to get a recommender to go to bat for you with a feeder judge or SCOTUS justice, but it's not the only way.

Just to pile on some more, even if Judge Srinviasan could actually figure out who is top 1-2% at YLS, he likely wouldn't use it as a threshold. Roughly 4-5% of YLS grads in a given class will end up clerking on SCOTUS. Sri isn't filtering out potential SCOTUS clerks. So, YLS 1Ls: if you've got straight Hs, and if you've got one or two influential recommenders who are willing to make calls for you, don't self-select out of applying to Judge Srinviasan (or any other feeder judge) because you believe that you have not broken into the imaginary "top 1 or 2%" tier that the anon poster believes exists.

[Anonymous User]

YLS 3L here, clerking for a prominent 2/9/DC feeder later this year. rpupkin's comments are credited.

Judges hiring from HYS, in my experience and that of my peers, are not as fascistic about exam demarcations as is being described here. Once you are "in range" of a particular judge, there are lots of non-grade variables that come into it. Judges are humans who want to work with competent, interesting people.

[LurkerTurnedMember]

I heard that someone else heard that people generally hear if you're not a top 3% student at Princeton Law you can't clerk for a feeder.

I hear that.

See? Not making it up. Evidence of said heard thing heard! ^^^

Edit to give a serious note: You don't have to be top 3%, top 5%, or even top 10% to clerk for a feeder, likely even for Srinivasan. If you're from a T10 and are about top 20%, you're fine. Maybe you won't get there straight outta law school. But if you have two or so years of post law school experience, especially if at least one year of it is clerking, and maybe someone to call on your behalf, I'm sure you're fine. Of course, I don't know Srinivasan or other feeder judges personally. But they're human and likely not as anal about such strict grade cut offs and exact schools as people make them out to be. And it makes sense that, if you're hiring a clerk, you'd rather have one that has good grades and two years of on-point experience than someone with excellent grades but who'll take 3 or so months out of a one-year clerkship just to learn the ropes and finally settle in.

[Anonymous User]

Just to pile on another piece of anecdotal evidence, a well-connected professor told me that a current YLS 2L landed a clerkship with Garland this summer with 3Hs and *gasp* 1P. The HORROR!

[nothingtosee]

Just to pile on another piece of anecdotal evidence, a well-connected professor told me that a current YLS 2L landed a clerkship with Garland this summer with 3Hs and *gasp* 1P. The HORROR!

Looks like the whole confirmation debacle got him rattled

[Anonymous User]

Edit to give a serious note: You don't have to be top 3%, top 5%, or even top 10% to clerk for a feeder, likely even for Srinivasan. If you're from a T10 and are about top 20%, you're fine. Maybe you won't get there straight outta law school. But if you have two or so years of post law school experience, especially if at least one year of it is clerking, and maybe someone to call on your behalf, I'm sure you're fine. Of course, I don't know Srinivasan or other feeder judges personally. But they're human and likely not as anal about such strict grade cut offs and exact schools as people make them out to be. And it makes sense that, if you're hiring a clerk, you'd rather have one that has good grades and two years of on-point experience than someone with excellent grades but who'll take 3 or so months out of a one-year clerkship just to learn the ropes and finally settle in.

For some reason people on TLS don't want to appreciate how true this is -- how non-grade factors play a role even for prominent, top DC/2/9th Circuit judges. For example, there's a H/Y/S student clerking for Watford on the Ninth in near future. Qualifications? URM, served in military. I'm sure grades were decent, but nowhere near top. Judges pick clerks for all sorts of reasons.

[rpupkin]

Edit to give a serious note: You don't have to be top 3%, top 5%, or even top 10% to clerk for a feeder, likely even for Srinivasan. If you're from a T10 and are about top 20%, you're fine. Maybe you won't get there straight outta law school. But if you have two or so years of post law school experience, especially if at least one year of it is clerking, and maybe someone to call on your behalf, I'm sure you're fine. Of course, I don't know Srinivasan or other feeder judges personally. But they're human and likely not as anal about such strict grade cut offs and exact schools as people make them out to be. And it makes sense that, if you're hiring a clerk, you'd rather have one that has good grades and two years of on-point experience than someone with excellent grades but who'll take 3 or so months out of a one-year clerkship just to learn the ropes and finally settle in.

For some reason people on TLS don't want to appreciate how true this is -- how non-grade factors play a role even for prominent, top DC/2/9th Circuit judges. For example, there's a H/Y/S student clerking for Watford on the Ninth in near future. Qualifications? URM, served in military. I'm sure grades were decent, but nowhere near top. Judges pick clerks for all sorts of reasons.

Yep. Also, not all feeders are alike. Some really care about grades (though, as I explained above, not to the extreme extent that a couple of posters have suggested), while others are more holistic

[rpupkin]

I heard that someone else heard that people generally hear if you're not a top 3% student at Princeton Law you can't clerk for a feeder.

I hear that.

See? Not making it up. Evidence of said heard thing heard! ^^^

Edit to give a serious note: You don't have to be top 3%, top 5%, or even top 10% to clerk for a feeder, likely even for Srinivasan. If you're from a T10 and are about top 20%, you're fine. Maybe you won't get there straight outta law school. But if you have two or so years of post law school experience, especially if at least one year of it is clerking, and maybe someone to call on your behalf, I'm sure you're fine. Of course, I don't know Srinivasan or other feeder judges personally. But they're human and likely not as anal about such strict grade cut offs and exact schools as people make them out to be.

I missed this post earlier. I don't think it's correct.

Although I definitely think the "you need top 1-2% grades form HYS" folks are wrong/silly, your bolded statement is getting silly in the other direction. If you're just top 20% at a T10, you're not "fine" for a feeder clerkship. I don't care how many years of post-law-school experience you have. (Most feeders, by the way, hire grads right out of law school; it's different from district courts and non-feeder COA judges, who are more inclined to hire a clerk with 2-3 years of experience at a firm.)

And, yes, I'm sure you can find very occasional exceptions, just like you can find examples of people with LSAT scores in the 150s who get into YLS. But, as a general rule, you need to be way up there in your class at a T10 to clerk for Srinviasan or another feeder. If you're top 15% at CLS or UVA or something, he's not going to look at your application barring an extraordinary circumstance.

[mjb447]

You don't have to be top 3%, top 5%, or even top 10% to clerk for a feeder, likely even for Srinivasan. If you're from a T10 and are about top 20%, you're fine.

For some reason people on TLS don't want to appreciate how true this is -- how non-grade factors play a role even for prominent, top DC/2/9th Circuit judges. For example, there's a H/Y/S student clerking for Watford on the Ninth in near future. Qualifications? URM, served in military. I'm sure grades were decent, but nowhere near top. Judges pick clerks for all sorts of reasons.

My general (admittedly somewhat limited) experience here has actually been the opposite - the consensus in most of the "clerking chances?" threads is that someone with a very slim chance of obtaining a clerkship should still apply because (1) you never know what might pique a judge's interest and (2) "what's the worst that can happen?" There's an outer limit to holistic, idiosyncratic review though, even moreso when you're talking about feeders, who by definition screen for SCOTUS or borderline-SCOTUS credentials more than most other judges. I wouldn't characterize top 20% at a T10 as "fine" for a feeder unless "fine" just means that somewhere, sometime someone with those credentials has landed a feeder clerkship.

[Anonymous User]

I heard that someone else heard that people generally hear if you're not a top 3% student at Princeton Law you can't clerk for a feeder.

I hear that.

See? Not making it up. Evidence of said heard thing heard! ^^^

Edit to give a serious note: You don't have to be top 3%, top 5%, or even top 10% to clerk for a feeder, likely even for Srinivasan. If you're from a T10 and are about top 20%, you're fine. Maybe you won't get there straight outta law school. But if you have two or so years of post law school experience, especially if at least one year of it is clerking, and maybe someone to call on your behalf, I'm sure you're fine. Of course, I don't know Srinivasan or other feeder judges personally. But they're human and likely not as anal about such strict grade cut offs and exact schools as people make them out to be.

I missed this post earlier. I don't think it's correct.

Although I definitely think the "you need top 1-2% grades form HYS" folks are wrong/silly, your bolded statement is getting silly in the other direction. If you're just top 20% at a T10, you're not "fine" for a feeder clerkship. I don't care how many years of post-law-school experience you have. (Most feeders, by the way, hire grads right out of law school; it's different from district courts and non-feeder COA judges, who are more inclined to hire a clerk with 2-3 years of experience at a firm.)

And, yes, I'm sure you can find very occasional exceptions, just like you can find examples of people with LSAT scores in the 150s who get into YLS. But, as a general rule, you need to be way up there in your class at a T10 to clerk for Srinviasan or another feeder. If you're top 15% at CLS or UVA or something, he's not going to look at your application barring an extraordinary circumstance.

You're right that the initial language about top ~20% being "fine" is very optimistic, but the larger point is that many factors -- like military background or being a URM, or even gender -- can bump people, even with feeder judges, to a significant extent. This is especially true at places likes HYS. An HLS professor who knows a judge well, and who the judge trusts, can/sometimes does recommend a student that has done *very* well in that prof's classes but not necessarily in all other 1L classes. There are plenty of HLS profs and judges with that kind of relationship, and certain students can/do profit off of that much more so than others. Of course the professor needs a reason to go to bat for that student, but once s/he does, this can really trump grades. Seen it happen plenty of times.

[LurkerTurnedMember]

I heard that someone else heard that people generally hear if you're not a top 3% student at Princeton Law you can't clerk for a feeder.

I hear that.

See? Not making it up. Evidence of said heard thing heard! ^^^

Edit to give a serious note: You don't have to be top 3%, top 5%, or even top 10% to clerk for a feeder, likely even for Srinivasan. If you're from a T10 and are about top 20%, you're fine. Maybe you won't get there straight outta law school. But if you have two or so years of post law school experience, especially if at least one year of it is clerking, and maybe someone to call on your behalf, I'm sure you're fine. Of course, I don't know Srinivasan or other feeder judges personally. But they're human and likely not as anal about such strict grade cut offs and exact schools as people make them out to be.

I missed this post earlier. I don't think it's correct.

Although I definitely think the "you need top 1-2% grades form HYS" folks are wrong/silly, your bolded statement is getting silly in the other direction. If you're just top 20% at a T10, you're not "fine" for a feeder clerkship. I don't care how many years of post-law-school experience you have. (Most feeders, by the way, hire grads right out of law school; it's different from district courts and non-feeder COA judges, who are more inclined to hire a clerk with 2-3 years of experience at a firm.)

And, yes, I'm sure you can find very occasional exceptions, just like you can find examples of people with LSAT scores in the 150s who get into YLS. But, as a general rule, you need to be way up there in your class at a T10 to clerk for Srinviasan or another feeder. If you're top 15% at CLS or UVA or something, he's not going to look at your application barring an extraordinary circumstance.

I don't know any feeder judges personally or any more about their hiring process than the average guy looking in from the outside. So I definitely think there's a good chance I'm wrong. But I just can't imagine a person so anal about grades and similarly overrated qualifications. Top 15% and top 5% students in top schools are so close to each other. And a good difference comes from knowing how to take the exam, professor's writing preferences, and other unimportant differences. Maybe it's just me. But if I had to pick between a Top 25%, law review, a prior clerkship experience, and unique background (overcoming difficulties) in one applicant from Penn or Duke, let's say, and on the other end I had a Top 5%, law review, 1L from Harvard who talks about how they wanted to be a lawyer to follow in the footsteps of their father, aunt, and the 5 other lawyers in their family, I wouldn't hesitate in hiring the former over the latter. To pick the latter is to basically give up higher quality of work for an immaterial difference in credentials.

[rpupkin]

Maybe it's just me. But if I had to pick between a Top 25%, law review, a prior clerkship experience, and unique background (overcoming difficulties) in one applicant from Penn or Duke, let's say, and on the other end I had a Top 5%, law review, 1L from Harvard who talks about how they wanted to be a lawyer to follow in the footsteps of their father, aunt, and the 5 other lawyers in their family, I wouldn't hesitate in hiring the former over the latter. To pick the latter is to basically give up higher quality of work for an immaterial difference in credentials.

Yeah, it's basically just you. Most feeders wouldn't even look at the application of your first candidate. As for your assessment about which credentials are "material," most judges—based on their judgment and experience—don't see things the way you do. Perhaps they're just mindless prestige whores. Or perhaps they're right that the very top students at the very top schools make better clerks than the merely good students at schools that aren't quite as competitive.

I suggest that you approach this all with a little more humility. At a minimum, consider refraining from offering advice based on your assumptions about how you think the world should work.

[LurkerTurnedMember]

Maybe it's just me. But if I had to pick between a Top 25%, law review, a prior clerkship experience, and unique background (overcoming difficulties) in one applicant from Penn or Duke, let's say, and on the other end I had a Top 5%, law review, 1L from Harvard who talks about how they wanted to be a lawyer to follow in the footsteps of their father, aunt, and the 5 other lawyers in their family, I wouldn't hesitate in hiring the former over the latter. To pick the latter is to basically give up higher quality of work for an immaterial difference in credentials.

Yeah, it's basically just you. Most feeders wouldn't even look at the application of your first candidate. As for your assessment about which credentials are "material," most judges—based on their judgment and experience—don't see things the way you do. Perhaps they're just mindless prestige whores. Or perhaps they're right that the very top students at the very top schools make better clerks than the merely good students at schools that aren't quite as competitive.

I suggest that you approach this all with a little more humility. At a minimum, consider refraining from offering advice based on your assumptions about how you think the world should work.

Ok I'll just get out of the legal profession altogether since the law is, as I've come to learn though multiple clerkships, typically based directly or indirectly on reasonableness, which we assess based on assumptions about how we think the world should work.. Ok byee!! Leaving now! Oh and I'm sorry for thinking judges are reasonable people instead of assuming, as a lot of people here do, that they're ... Well i won't repeat the dirty words you used.

[Anonymous User]

In all seriousness though and not to derail the thread but how regularly do not conventionally qualified candidates land feeder clerkships? Assume, for example, they're otherwise competitive for D. Ct. or a non-feeder COA.

There is often discussion on this forum about "miracle clerkships" but never any about "miracle feeder clerkships." Not interested for myself but genuinely curious how infrequent it is.

[Anonymous User]

In all seriousness though and not to derail the thread but how regularly do not conventionally qualified candidates land feeder clerkships? Assume, for example, they're otherwise competitive for D. Ct. or a non-feeder COA.

There is often discussion on this forum about "miracle clerkships" but never any about "miracle feeder clerkships." Not interested for myself but genuinely curious how infrequent it is.

Answer: Race, gender, military background, compelling life story conveyed to the judge from a trusted source (former clerk, professor, lawyer) are all not "conventional" qualifications for feeders, but do happen. How often? Not in the "normal course", but more often than you'd think given many people's obsession with grades.

No one has statistics on this, in part because no one will want to identify as landing such a great position based on anything other than "conventional" qualifications (read: their own merit, narrowly construed, so as to put them on equal footing with other clerks who land those jobs).

[nothingtosee]

In all seriousness though and not to derail the thread but how regularly do not conventionally qualified candidates land feeder clerkships? Assume, for example, they're otherwise competitive for D. Ct. or a non-feeder COA.

There is often discussion on this forum about "miracle clerkships" but never any about "miracle feeder clerkships." Not interested for myself but genuinely curious how infrequent it is.

Not regularly. And this is also kind of a weird way to think about it.

If you have a Rhodes scholarship, or an ivy undergrad and served as a military officer, then you might need lower grades than someone who's K-JD. But that doesn't mean they were miracles. If you're just Joe Blow who is top 20% at Duke, I just don't think it's gonna happen.

[Anonymous User]

I know a Srinivasan clerk. Generally speaking, if you are at a school that has a GPA, he will want it to be above a 4.0 (if that is possible given your school's grading system. If not, I imagine as close to 4.0 as possible) in order for him to consider you. If you are wondering whether your grades are good enough, they probably aren't.

I don't know anything about HYS standards.

[Anonymous User]

I know a Srinivasan clerk. Generally speaking, if you are at a school that has a GPA, he will want it to be above a 4.0 (if that is possible given your school's grading system. If not, I imagine as close to 4.0 as possible) in order for him to consider you. If you are wondering whether your grades are good enough, they probably aren't.

I don't know anything about HYS standards.

I know two Srinivasan clerks from my school. This seems accurate.

[Anonymous User]

I know a Srinivasan clerk. Generally speaking, if you are at a school that has a GPA, he will want it to be above a 4.0 (if that is possible given your school's grading system. If not, I imagine as close to 4.0 as possible) in order for him to consider you. If you are wondering whether your grades are good enough, they probably aren't.

I don't know anything about HYS standards.

I know two Srinivasan clerks from my school. This seems accurate.

No offense, but this is a useless metric. Basically what you're saying is "he will want it as close to the highest achievable GPA as possible." Yeah, you think? Not to mention that different schools curve differently, so the #1 student at one school could only be a 3.94 and the #2 student at another could be say, a 3.95. GPAs don't matter; what matters is your rank.

[Anonymous User]

I know a Srinivasan clerk. Generally speaking, if you are at a school that has a GPA, he will want it to be above a 4.0 (if that is possible given your school's grading system. If not, I imagine as close to 4.0 as possible) in order for him to consider you. If you are wondering whether your grades are good enough, they probably aren't.

I don't know anything about HYS standards.

I know two Srinivasan clerks from my school. This seems accurate.

No offense, but this is a useless metric. Basically what you're saying is "he will want it as close to the highest achievable GPA as possible." Yeah, you think? Not to mention that different schools curve differently, so the #1 student at one school could only be a 3.94 and the #2 student at another could be say, a 3.95. GPAs don't matter; what matters is your rank.

I'm sure he considers rank and school, obviously. But, from what I understand, he is explicit about the 4.0 thing. In large part feeders are hiring based on professor connections. Sri isn't picking between the #1 and #2 person at a given school. He's picking between various top-ish students at top schools that professors he knows have recommended. I gather that, generally speaking, he isn't going to look at someone with less than a 4.0.