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I clerked for a district court and a different circuit a few years back. Now I’m a 6th year in dc and do pretty much all admin law cases, mostly before the DC circuit. I’m not assuming I’d get an offer if I applied. But I’ve started to think that I wish I had applied after my first COA clerkship. Would clerking as a super senior associate be a dumb move? I doubt my firm would give me another clerkship bonus and there’s no precedent for people leaving this late to do a circuit clerkship, so I’m not even 100% sure they’d support the idea.

I don’t get it: what’s your reason for wanting to clerk (again)? The fact that you do a lot of admin cases?

runinthefront wrote:I don’t get it: what’s your reason for wanting to clerk (again)? The fact that you do a lot of admin cases?

I started to launch into that but deleted it. Basically a combo of (1) liked clerking and would do it more if it didn’t totally fuck up career trajectory (2) think dc Cir has cases that interest me and (3) dc Cir has a slight edge over my COA in terms of advancement in my current line of work (#3 is probably near null at this point though)

Anonymous User wrote:

runinthefront wrote:I don’t get it: what’s your reason for wanting to clerk (again)? The fact that you do a lot of admin cases?

I started to launch into that but deleted it. Basically a combo of (1) liked clerking and would do it more if it didn’t totally fuck up career trajectory (2) think dc Cir has cases that interest me and (3) dc Cir has a slight edge over my COA in terms of advancement in my current line of work (#3 is probably near bull at this point though)

Clerking would probably fuck up your career trajectory. And you're already doing many cases that interest you--namely, admin law. And I can't see how a DC Circuit clerkship would make any meaningful difference to your employability/marketability given that (a) you're already doing a lot of litigating in front of the DC Cir, and (b) you've already clerked twice.

In my opinion, I'd stay put.

Op here. Ya it’s a dumb idea. And my wife would probably stab me if I proposed it to her in any event. Thanks for being a sounding board.

If anyone has the same question, for different reasons... it was recently recommended to me that I apply to clerk for the D.C. Circuit. According to my school's career office, most judges have already hired for the Fall 2018 term, but it's okay to go ahead and call the chambers of individual judges and ask if they're still accepting applications. I called a few this morning and some of them had already hired but some of them were still accepting apps and said to send them in ASAP as they're reviewing them right around now.

arose928 wrote:If anyone has the same question, for different reasons... it was recently recommended to me that I apply to clerk for the D.C. Circuit. According to my school's career office, most judges have already hired for the Fall 2018 term, but it's okay to go ahead and call the chambers of individual judges and ask if they're still accepting applications. I called a few this morning and some of them had already hired but some of them were still accepting apps and said to send them in ASAP as they're reviewing them right around now.

Are you able to say which judges are hiring? I am in the process of applying now and would like to return to DC after my district court clerkship.

Unless any judges have recently reopened hiring for some reason, no one on the DC Circuit is still hiring for 2018 with the likely exception of Katsas.

A colleague of mine clerked on a similar court as a 7th year and transitioned from private practice into government practice. It was not his first clerkship.