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I'm trying to decide whether to apply for 2020-2021 circuit court clerkships.

I graduated from HYS with slightly below median grades. I'm currently clerking for a U.S. magistrate judge and will be clerking for a U.S. district court judge in flyover territory in 2019-2020. After clerking, my immediate goal is DOJ Honors and my long-term goals are to work for a national civil rights organization and/or do appellate litigation in some capacity. Do you think that it would be worth applying for a third COA clerkship?

ideally you wouldn't do the magistrate clerkship at all, would instead do 1 district, 1 appellate.

it's hurting your resume, frankly: snobs are gonna wonder why you took the magistrate clerkship ("did this guy graduate at the absolute bottom of his class?"), and employers aren't gonna like that you clerked for three years, which, as you sense, is weird, barring exceptional circumstances (ie, you're clerking for a feeder and gunning for SCOTUS).

feel like COA is a borderline prerequisite to do appellate work at a prominent BigLaw firm, and have been told that by people who do it, but I don't like, practice appellate law at a BigLaw practice personally. as for national civil rights, IDK.

Clerking for a third time isn't as weird if you have no plans of going to biglaw. Its also way less of an economic hit that way (JS-13 clerks might make more than whatever GS level you'd start at at DOJ). An appellate clerkship is not a prerequisite to do appellate work, but its a pretty great credential, and would go a ways toward eliminating the bias with which people might look at your magistrate clerkship (which is not necessarily justified--MJ clerkships vary widely in their rigor/value).

I'm an idiot and just realized that OP is *currently a magistrate district court clerk*--ignore what I said about not doing it, irrelevant at this point

Barrred wrote:Clerking for a third time isn't as weird if you have no plans of going to biglaw. Its also way less of an economic hit that way (JS-13 clerks might make more than whatever GS level you'd start at at DOJ). An appellate clerkship is not a prerequisite to do appellate work, but its a pretty great credential, and would go a ways toward eliminating the bias with which people might look at your magistrate clerkship (which is not necessarily justified--MJ clerkships vary widely in their rigor/value).

I agree with the above. I think that for OP's goals and given OP's current position, shooting for a CoA clerkship makes sense. That said, I would only advise doing a third clerkship if OP indeed lands a CoA clerkship. I would absolutely not recommend that OP do a second D.Ct. clerkship (unless maybe SDNY or equivalent, but if OP can get SDNY/equivalent they can probably get a CoA clerkship somewhere in a non-2/9/DC Circuit).