Length of Time Searching for Clerkship? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Curious to hear how long TLSers searched for a clerkship before actually landing one. I'm sure YMMV, and a lot of it is random. But I've been clerkship hunting for 9 months now, and struck out on the only D.Ct. nibble I had. For context: '17 T14 graduate with median grades in big law. Pondering how long I should spend applying before realizing the ship has sailed.

[HillandHollow]

I guess from first application to accepted offer took about 7-8 months. But, there are a few things worth mentioning. I sent the bulk of my apps in months 4-5, and all of my interviews came from those apps. The one to the judge who offered me went out in month 5 or 6, I think. Also, I got better at it over time, so the first several were garbage compared to my later submissions. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t have any interview offers from packets that went out in the first three months (prompting me to review and improve my application).

[mjb447]

I took a long time in total (more than a year, probably), but didn’t do it intensively for a while. It also depends on how broadly you’re applying.

[ernie]

Took me 14 months. Got basically zero interest until the last couple months when a professor went to bat for me. I wish I had asked him earlier, would have saved me a lot of time!

[Rowinguy2009]

For me it was only about 2 months, but I think a factor that really helped me was timing. I started applying in mid-January a year and a half before my intended clerkship. To me, this seemed like the prime time to send applications, even if a decent number of judges would seemingly accept applications in January/February and then not really do anything with them for several months.

Disclaimer: this was in 2014; I know the timeline is pretty much always changing so maybe my advice is old news.

[Anonymous User]

It took me 6 months. But I go to a small regional school, sent out 60 apps and only got 2 interviews (both were based on connections). I was applying for 2018 and 2019, ended up with a clerkship for 2020 that I am incredibly excited about. The biggest thing I learned is you have to be flexible.