Clerking with work experience Forum

(Seek and share information about clerkship applications, clerkship hiring timelines, and post-clerkship employment opportunities)
Forum rules
Anonymous Posting

Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are sharing sensitive information about clerkship applications and clerkship hiring. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.

Failure to follow these rules will get you outed, warned, or banned."
Anonymous User
Posts: 428117
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am

Clerking with work experience

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Nov 07, 2017 12:57 pm

I'm a 2015 grad doing enforcement work for a major federal agency. I'm currently applying for clerkships, and if I get one, it would most likely be during the 2019-20 term. I want to know if doing this would be a mistake.

My current work involves some (but personally, not enough) litigation. Further, litigation is federal court is ultimately handled by DOJ, with my agency playing support. In order of preference, I'd like to (1) litigate for the federal government, (2) litigate for the private sector, (3) stay at my current job, and (4) not be unemployed. I view clerkship as a means of transitioning to #1 and #2, which would cost me #3 and risk #4. So, more specifically, I'm curious to know to what extent TLS thinks a clerkship would help with the transition, and how my timing affects the risk of #4.

I know that there are a few other "clerking with experience" threads out there. Notwithstanding, I think my circumstance are a little different. First, I don't do full bore litigation now. Second, my learning curve is relatively front loaded--at this point (and certainly by this time next year), I have as much responsibility as I will ever have. It's a lot of responsibility and obviously/hopefully I'll continue to get better at my job, but I don't expect to learn more by virtue of my job changing, so the experiential opportunity cost is lower.

Anyways, I'm soliciting opinions. I can fill in more details if necessary (though I don't want to out myself). Thanks.
Last edited by Anonymous User on Tue Nov 07, 2017 6:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

lolwat

Silver
Posts: 1216
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2010 2:30 pm

Re: Clerking with work experience

Post by lolwat » Tue Nov 07, 2017 2:01 pm

I think it'd be fine for the 2019-2020 term (it's not quite too far out), but would probably prefer to let others with fed/govt experience chime in. I have no idea how difficult it would be to just move from your current federal agency versus going to a clerkship to do the move.

Post Reply Post Anonymous Reply  

Return to “Judicial Clerkships”