Will judge definitely ask for transcript when applying for a clerkship? Forum

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Will judge definitely ask for transcript when applying for a clerkship?

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Jun 22, 2017 2:36 pm

Simply put, I have 6 years of paralegal experience in civil litigation in a very small state, including 3 years prior to law school and clerking during fall, winter, spring, and summer breaks. I go to a top 50 Above the Law ranked school.

I failed a class and have been granted readmission to my school after being academically dismissed.

I know that despite this failure on my record, I have more real-world and practical experience than nearly any applicant. I also am undoubtedly more passionate about civil litigation and our state's rules of court more than any random law school applicant. Also, many of the judges I would be applying to know my employer of 6 years.

The position is for law clerk for a state trial court.

I am confident I would be asked for interviews. To apply, only a resume and cover letter is required - no transcript. Assuming an interview goes well, I imagine the judge and judge's current law clerk would want to see my transcript will show my failure. Would any judge 100% ask to see a transcript? I am obligated to tell the judge or law clerk this even if they dont ask? If I do interview and it goes well and asked for a transcript, I will obviously send it, but would it negatively impact me later on (possibly)?

Thank you.

WheninLaw

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Re: Will judge definitely ask for transcript when applying for a clerkship?

Post by WheninLaw » Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:19 pm

Anonymous User wrote:Simply put, I have 6 years of paralegal experience in civil litigation in a very small state, including 3 years prior to law school and clerking during fall, winter, spring, and summer breaks. I go to a top 50 Above the Law ranked school.

I failed a class and have been granted readmission to my school after being academically dismissed.

I know that despite this failure on my record, I have more real-world and practical experience than nearly any applicant. I also am undoubtedly more passionate about civil litigation and our state's rules of court more than any random law school applicant. Also, many of the judges I would be applying to know my employer of 6 years.

The position is for law clerk for a state trial court.

I am confident I would be asked for interviews. To apply, only a resume and cover letter is required - no transcript. Assuming an interview goes well, I imagine the judge and judge's current law clerk would want to see my transcript will show my failure. Would any judge 100% ask to see a transcript? I am obligated to tell the judge or law clerk this even if they dont ask? If I do interview and it goes well and asked for a transcript, I will obviously send it, but would it negatively impact me later on (possibly)?

Thank you.
I have no idea what happens at the state trial level. I would be very, very surprised if they did not ask to see your transcript. If they do not, I see no need to bring it up. If they want to ding you for it later, fine.

LurkerTurnedMember

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Re: Will judge definitely ask for transcript when applying for a clerkship?

Post by LurkerTurnedMember » Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:26 pm

Never clerked or applied to a state court before so take this with a grain of salt. But it seems obvious that failing a class and being kicked out of your school for academic performance is going to look bad and hurt your chances. And the judge should be made aware of it even if for some reason he or she doesn't ask for a transcript because it's a fact material to hiring you. If you were hiring someone, would you think it was improper for that person to fail to tell you that before you hired them? But I'm pretty sure they'll ask for your transcript anyway so that could be a method of informing them.

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Rowinguy2009

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Re: Will judge definitely ask for transcript when applying for a clerkship?

Post by Rowinguy2009 » Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:02 pm

Have you talked with your school's office of career service to discuss how this should be presented on your resume? My normal thought is that people only have to disclose what is asked of them and that, if you are not asked about something damaging like this, you are not required to disclose it as long as you are not misrepresenting yourself. However, with this, presenting your dates of attendance in the normal fashion on your resume is sort of misleading because It implies (in my mind) that you were a student, without breaks, from "2014-present" (or whatever your actual dates are).

I guess my point is that you have to come up with a way to address this so that you are both being honest but not completely crippling your career chances. Whatever method you decide on is probably how you should approach most applications (clerkship or not) going forward.

More to your question - will all state trial judges ask for a transcript? Probably not, but my guess is that many (most?) do.

Anonymous User
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Re: Will judge definitely ask for transcript when applying for a clerkship?

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:38 pm

Having done two clerkships, two court internships in law school, and having a lot of friends who have clerked at every level, state and federal, I have never heard of a judge not asking for a transcript at some point. Maybe they exist, but not to my knowledge.

That said, you're under no obligation to tell them anything about your grades unless asked.

And of course it will negatively impact you. Having anything but straight As will negatively impact you. Having a C is an automatic ding for some employers, judges included.

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FascinatedWanderer

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Re: Will judge definitely ask for transcript when applying for a clerkship?

Post by FascinatedWanderer » Thu Jun 22, 2017 5:16 pm

Anonymous User wrote:Simply put, I have 6 years of paralegal experience in civil litigation in a very small state, including 3 years prior to law school and clerking during fall, winter, spring, and summer breaks. I go to a top 50 Above the Law ranked school.

I failed a class and have been granted readmission to my school after being academically dismissed.

I know that despite this failure on my record, I have more real-world and practical experience than nearly any applicant. I also am undoubtedly more passionate about civil litigation and our state's rules of court more than any random law school applicant. Also, many of the judges I would be applying to know my employer of 6 years.

The position is for law clerk for a state trial court.

I am confident I would be asked for interviews. To apply, only a resume and cover letter is required - no transcript. Assuming an interview goes well, I imagine the judge and judge's current law clerk would want to see my transcript will show my failure. Would any judge 100% ask to see a transcript? I am obligated to tell the judge or law clerk this even if they dont ask? If I do interview and it goes well and asked for a transcript, I will obviously send it, but would it negatively impact me later on (possibly)?

Thank you.
You know some very dubious things.

Anonymous User
Posts: 428117
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am

Re: Will judge definitely ask for transcript when applying for a clerkship?

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Jun 22, 2017 8:54 pm

Anonymous User wrote:Simply put, I have 6 years of paralegal experience in civil litigation in a very small state, including 3 years prior to law school and clerking during fall, winter, spring, and summer breaks. I go to a top 50 Above the Law ranked school.

I failed a class and have been granted readmission to my school after being academically dismissed.

I know that despite this failure on my record, I have more real-world and practical experience than nearly any applicant. I also am undoubtedly more passionate about civil litigation and our state's rules of court more than any random law school applicant. Also, many of the judges I would be applying to know my employer of 6 years.

The position is for law clerk for a state trial court.

I am confident I would be asked for interviews. To apply, only a resume and cover letter is required - no transcript. Assuming an interview goes well, I imagine the judge and judge's current law clerk would want to see my transcript will show my failure. Would any judge 100% ask to see a transcript? I am obligated to tell the judge or law clerk this even if they dont ask? If I do interview and it goes well and asked for a transcript, I will obviously send it, but would it negatively impact me later on (possibly)?

Thank you.
This . . . is a strange question on so many levels. Yeah, you aren't obligated to give the judge a transcript unless asked, but they're going to ask. I'm a current state trial court law clerk, and while states differ/YMMV, you will 100% have to provide the judge (or HR) with a transcript at some point in the hiring process. More to the point, how is failing a class not reflected in your GPA, which should be right on your resume? State trial courts aren't as credential-sensitive as federal courts, but we're not scraping the bottom of the barrel, either. I don't want to dump on your chances, but it seems like some of your assumptions here are unrealistically optimistic. A failed class is going to negatively impact you with clerkships, and there's just no way around that. Frankly, if you still have a good relationship with your former employer and they're willing to go to bat for you, you might have more success leveraging their connections to get your application in front of a judge than just submitting an application cold.

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mjb447

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Re: Will judge definitely ask for transcript when applying for a clerkship?

Post by mjb447 » Thu Jun 22, 2017 9:18 pm

Yeah, I'm surprised that this isn't reflected somewhere on your resume, and I'll also be surprised if you get through the process without submitting a transcript (some judges just ask for a resume early on because it's all they want in order to make the initial decision, but most ask for a transcript eventually).

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