Srinivasan Clerkship? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Somewhat related question: what makes a judge a feeder to begin with? I know it means a judge likely to send clerks to SCOTUS. But what initially determines that? For instance, Sri is young. How has he achieved his status as a feeder, when older DC/2/9 judges have not? It it just a matter of connections between specific SCOTUS and Circuit judges?

[Anonymous User]

Somewhat related question: what makes a judge a feeder to begin with? I know it means a judge likely to send clerks to SCOTUS. But what initially determines that? For instance, Sri is young. How has he achieved his status as a feeder, when older DC/2/9 judges have not? It it just a matter of connections between specific SCOTUS and Circuit judges?

He's known for being incredibly smart. He was deputy SG under Kagan. When he was appointed, it was understood that he would be a likely SCOTUS nominee under a Democrat.

[Anonymous User]

Somewhat related question: what makes a judge a feeder to begin with? I know it means a judge likely to send clerks to SCOTUS. But what initially determines that? For instance, Sri is young. How has he achieved his status as a feeder, when older DC/2/9 judges have not? It it just a matter of connections between specific SCOTUS and Circuit judges?

He's known for being incredibly smart. He was deputy SG under Kagan. When he was appointed, it was understood that he would be a likely SCOTUS nominee under a Democrat.

He's one of those few frighteningly smart people. Like genius-class intellect. But he's also an incredibly personable guy.

[nothingtosee]

This is a great thread btw

[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.

Same. Top student at a T6 school here. No reach outs, no specific assistance, no effort by the school whatsoever. Landed a 2/9/DC somewhat feeder during 2L just through my own efforts. Not Sri level though; maybe that's the difference.

[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.

Same. Top student at a T6 school here. No reach outs, no specific assistance, no effort by the school whatsoever. Landed a 2/9/DC somewhat feeder during 2L just through my own efforts. Not Sri level though; maybe that's the difference.

I had a similar experience. My judge actually didn't take calls on behalf of applicants at all. When I went through the clerkship and helped with hiring, there were a few times a professor or such would call and the assistant would basically say "no thanks" and hang up. I don't have any statistical evidence to back it up but I have a feeling more judges, no matter how slowly, are starting to adopt practices that make the process fairer, i.e., just send me your app, I'll read/skim it like everyone's, and decide who to interview without having a connection get you the interview for you.

[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.

Same. Top student at a T6 school here. No reach outs, no specific assistance, no effort by the school whatsoever. Landed a 2/9/DC somewhat feeder during 2L just through my own efforts. Not Sri level though; maybe that's the difference.

I had a similar experience. My judge actually didn't take calls on behalf of applicants at all. When I went through the clerkship and helped with hiring, there were a few times a professor or such would call and the assistant would basically say "no thanks" and hang up. I don't have any statistical evidence to back it up but I have a feeling more judges, no matter how slowly, are starting to adopt practices that make the process fairer, i.e., just send me your app, I'll read/skim it like everyone's, and decide who to interview without having a connection get you the interview for you.

I know for a fact that the feeder-level DC Circuit judges, including Srinivasan, rely on calls from professors to determine which candidates to interview. They tend to interview fewer candidates and to hire a higher percentage of interviewees than the average circuit judge, so a lot of the weeding out occurs pre-interview.

[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.

Same. Top student at a T6 school here. No reach outs, no specific assistance, no effort by the school whatsoever. Landed a 2/9/DC somewhat feeder during 2L just through my own efforts. Not Sri level though; maybe that's the difference.

I had a similar experience. My judge actually didn't take calls on behalf of applicants at all. When I went through the clerkship and helped with hiring, there were a few times a professor or such would call and the assistant would basically say "no thanks" and hang up. I don't have any statistical evidence to back it up but I have a feeling more judges, no matter how slowly, are starting to adopt practices that make the process fairer, i.e., just send me your app, I'll read/skim it like everyone's, and decide who to interview without having a connection get you the interview for you.

I know for a fact that the feeder-level DC Circuit judges, including Srinivasan, rely on calls from professors to determine which candidates to interview. They tend to interview fewer candidates and to hire a higher percentage of interviewees than the average circuit judge, so a lot of the weeding out occurs pre-interview.

This is the anon you just quoted. Sorry for the confusion. I didn't mean to suggest it was a Sri level clerkship. I echoed the post I myself quoted that said it wasn't that level of a clerkship.

[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.

Not top 3, but very few outside the top 5.

[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.

Not top 3, but very few outside the top 5.

LOL. This is just simply not true. Any Order of the Coif wahoos out there don't be discouraged by this nonsense.

[Anonymous User]

.

[Anonymous User]

Look at this level, it's more about connections than grades. I had a stronger school/grades combo than many people who got feeder clerkships, but I didn't have the connections, so I didn't.

Once you pass a certain threshold, and for most feeders that's roughly top 5% at an upper T14, the connections are dispositive.

[Anonymous User]

Is Sri sneaky off-plan for the right candidate? He's supposedly on plan / needs two years but then there's inklings like keeping an email route to application open that hint otherwise (unless that's for alums, but I don't know why they wouldn't have OSCAR access). Also having connections to top profs who can speak to top students might be a reason for him to jump the line (or at least have "feelers" in that direction).

[Anonymous User]

Is Sri sneaky off-plan for the right candidate? He's supposedly on plan / needs two years but then there's inklings like keeping an email route to application open that hint otherwise (unless that's for alums, but I don't know why they wouldn't have OSCAR access). Also having connections to top profs who can speak to top students might be a reason for him to jump the line (or at least have "feelers" in that direction).

It's more or less an open secret that a fair number of the feeder plan judges are only nominally on-plan, and usually have a very good idea of who they will hire before the plan opens up, if they haven't already made wink-wink offers before through professor connections. I don't know if Sri is one of those judges, but there are judges on CADC who are, and it would not surprise me if he was.

[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.

Not top 3, but very few outside the top 5.

LOL. This is just simply not true. Any Order of the Coif wahoos out there don't be discouraged by this nonsense.

Of course, just not for Judge Srinivasan. He's the most selective judge in the country. When Judge Garland was on the D.C. Circuit, 68 of 75 clerks were from HYS. Being top 10% at a T14 isn't good enough absent some extraordinary plus factor.

[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.

Not top 3, but very few outside the top 5.

LOL. This is just simply not true. Any Order of the Coif wahoos out there don't be discouraged by this nonsense.

Of course, just not for Judge Srinivasan. He's the most selective judge in the country. When Judge Garland was on the D.C. Circuit, 68 of 75 clerks were from HYS. Being top 10% at a T14 isn't good enough absent some extraordinary plus factor.

Am I the only one not impressed by judges who delegate their hiring decisions to the LSAC and admissions officers? I'm not saying that Judge Garland did not have the most desirable clerk positions, but to pull 90% of clerks from three schools seems lazy and parochial.

[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.

Not top 3, but very few outside the top 5.

LOL. This is just simply not true. Any Order of the Coif wahoos out there don't be discouraged by this nonsense.

Of course, just not for Judge Srinivasan. He's the most selective judge in the country. When Judge Garland was on the D.C. Circuit, 68 of 75 clerks were from HYS. Being top 10% at a T14 isn't good enough absent some extraordinary plus factor.

Am I the only one not impressed by judges who delegate their hiring decisions to the LSAC and admissions officers? I'm not saying that Judge Garland did not have the most desirable clerk positions, but to pull 90% of clerks from three schools seems lazy and parochial.

You're not the only one. It is lazy and parochial. I'm not at all convinced that someone who is top 5% at Harvard is categorically better than, say, someone who is top 5% at an NYU.

[Anonymous User]

I’ll go even more specific—favoring the arbitrary DS system at H among such a large class size is objectively worse than *both* counting H’s at Y/S or the more granular grading scales at Chicago on down.

[Anonymous User]

You're not the only one. It is lazy and parochial. I'm not at all convinced that someone who is top 5% at Harvard is categorically better than, say, someone who is top 5% at an NYU.

They probably are not. But it's a fast and easy way to get good clerks, and clearly, it works, so why would they change? I've also long believed Harvard lends itself well to feeding the most selective judges by explicitly stating who the top student each class year is.

[Anonymous User]

Am I the only one not impressed by judges who delegate their hiring decisions to the LSAC and admissions officers? I'm not saying that Judge Garland did not have the most desirable clerk positions, but to pull 90% of clerks from three schools seems lazy and parochial.

You're not the only one. It is lazy and parochial. I'm not at all convinced that someone who is top 5% at Harvard is categorically better than, say, someone who is top 5% at an NYU.

They're absolutely not. The problem is that judges have to figure out how to weed out applications somehow. And if you start taking grads from a particular school, you also probably start to develop a relationship with that school/the profs who recommend students, which becomes a way to get through the piles of applications. That's how pipelines develop and become self-perpetuating. Not sure it's lazy and parochial as much as the reality of having to hire clerks every year in a busy job. The NYU top 5% isn't categorically worse than Harvard, but by the same token they're not categorically better, so judges who just go with HYS probably aren't missing out. I don't mean to suggest this is the best way to hire, but there's not a lot of incentive for judges to change it. And let's be honest, hiring out of the top 5% at NYU - or even the rest of the T14 - as well as the top 5% at HYS isn't dramatically less parochial. (Also, Garland and Srinivisan are double-degree-ers (Harvard/Stanford) so I'd bet there's a lot of alumni loyalty from them specifically.)

[Anonymous User]

You're not the only one. It is lazy and parochial. I'm not at all convinced that someone who is top 5% at Harvard is categorically better than, say, someone who is top 5% at an NYU.

They probably are not. But it's a fast and easy way to get good clerks, and clearly, it works, so why would they change? I've also long believed Harvard lends itself well to feeding the most selective judges by explicitly stating who the top student each class year is.

Don't other schools do this as well though?

https://www.law.columbia.edu/community- ... mic-prizes

https://www.law.nyu.edu/studentaffairs/ ... Recipients

https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/12 ... and-prizes

[Anonymous User]

You're not the only one. It is lazy and parochial. I'm not at all convinced that someone who is top 5% at Harvard is categorically better than, say, someone who is top 5% at an NYU.

They probably are not. But it's a fast and easy way to get good clerks, and clearly, it works, so why would they change? I've also long believed Harvard lends itself well to feeding the most selective judges by explicitly stating who the top student each class year is.

Don't other schools do this as well though?

https://www.law.columbia.edu/community- ... mic-prizes

https://www.law.nyu.edu/studentaffairs/ ... Recipients

https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/12 ... and-prizes

Upenn's is most similar to Harvard's awarding of the Sears Prize for 1L/2L and the Fay Diploma for 3L. NYU and Columbia only tell you who the top student at the end of the entire program (or for 5 semesters for NYU because I guess they are too lazy to get 2nd semester 3L grades in before graduation), which isn't really useful for a feeder judge hiring on-Plan. And in Columbia's case, it looks like there can be wonky results, seeing as the top student at the end of 3L apparently wasn't an RBG prize winner?

[Anonymous User]

You're not the only one. It is lazy and parochial. I'm not at all convinced that someone who is top 5% at Harvard is categorically better than, say, someone who is top 5% at an NYU.

They probably are not. But it's a fast and easy way to get good clerks, and clearly, it works, so why would they change? I've also long believed Harvard lends itself well to feeding the most selective judges by explicitly stating who the top student each class year is.

Don't other schools do this as well though?

https://www.law.columbia.edu/community- ... mic-prizes

https://www.law.nyu.edu/studentaffairs/ ... Recipients

https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/12 ... and-prizes

Upenn's is most similar to Harvard's awarding of the Sears Prize for 1L/2L and the Fay Diploma for 3L. NYU and Columbia only tell you who the top student at the end of the entire program (or for 5 semesters for NYU because I guess they are too lazy to get 2nd semester 3L grades in before graduation), which isn't really useful for a feeder judge hiring on-Plan. And in Columbia's case, it looks like there can be wonky results, seeing as the top student at the end of 3L apparently wasn't an RBG prize winner?

NYU has Pomeroy (top 10 after 1L) and Butler (top 10 after 2L). Double Kent after 2L for Columbia is generally a sufficient signal as well.

Not that paper honors even matter for feeders. If they want to know, which most will, the schools will reveal the exact internal rankings of the candidates they are pushing to those judges. See: UVA's leaked GPA list.

[Anonymous User]

You're not the only one. It is lazy and parochial. I'm not at all convinced that someone who is top 5% at Harvard is categorically better than, say, someone who is top 5% at an NYU.

They probably are not. But it's a fast and easy way to get good clerks, and clearly, it works, so why would they change? I've also long believed Harvard lends itself well to feeding the most selective judges by explicitly stating who the top student each class year is.

Don't other schools do this as well though?

https://www.law.columbia.edu/community- ... mic-prizes

https://www.law.nyu.edu/studentaffairs/ ... Recipients

https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/12 ... and-prizes

Upenn's is most similar to Harvard's awarding of the Sears Prize for 1L/2L and the Fay Diploma for 3L. NYU and Columbia only tell you who the top student at the end of the entire program (or for 5 semesters for NYU because I guess they are too lazy to get 2nd semester 3L grades in before graduation), which isn't really useful for a feeder judge hiring on-Plan. And in Columbia's case, it looks like there can be wonky results, seeing as the top student at the end of 3L apparently wasn't an RBG prize winner?

The CLS thing is weird. It probably has to do with the Covid P/F semester, or he collected an unusual amount of A+s. Every other year, the highest GPA is also an RBG scholar.

[Anonymous User]

You're not the only one. It is lazy and parochial. I'm not at all convinced that someone who is top 5% at Harvard is categorically better than, say, someone who is top 5% at an NYU.

They probably are not. But it's a fast and easy way to get good clerks, and clearly, it works, so why would they change? I've also long believed Harvard lends itself well to feeding the most selective judges by explicitly stating who the top student each class year is.

Don't other schools do this as well though?

https://www.law.columbia.edu/community- ... mic-prizes

https://www.law.nyu.edu/studentaffairs/ ... Recipients

https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/12 ... and-prizes

Upenn's is most similar to Harvard's awarding of the Sears Prize for 1L/2L and the Fay Diploma for 3L. NYU and Columbia only tell you who the top student at the end of the entire program (or for 5 semesters for NYU because I guess they are too lazy to get 2nd semester 3L grades in before graduation), which isn't really useful for a feeder judge hiring on-Plan. And in Columbia's case, it looks like there can be wonky results, seeing as the top student at the end of 3L apparently wasn't an RBG prize winner?

NYU has Pomeroy (top 10 after 1L) and Butler (top 10 after 2L). Double Kent after 2L for Columbia is generally a sufficient signal as well.

Not that paper honors even matter for feeders. If they want to know, which most will, the schools will reveal the exact internal rankings of the candidates they are pushing to those judges. See: UVA's leaked GPA list.

Chicago also has K&E for the top 10 after 1L and 2L.