Movement Today Forum

[Anonymous User]

I think judges are definitely still in the process. I have 2 interviews lined up in the upcoming weeks but I got emails from multiple chambers today essentially just confirming receipt of application or asking minor clarifying questions about my materials.

FWIW, all my interviews/correspondence so far from outside of 2/9/DC, mostly district courts.

[Anonymous User]

According to my JCO's Handbook:

"Given the large number of applicants, many students do not get any interviews, and it is common for students to secure only one to three interviews."

This is kind of misleading because, at least in my chambers and in other chambers I'm familiar with, there's a pretty high offer rate once you're brought in for an interview. It would be less common for a student to have, say, eight interviews--that would indicate a combination of great credentials on paper and repeatedly poor interview performance.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone outside of the T14 having any luck? 100+ applications and absolute silence... Reaching the point of emailing every professor or former clerk I've ever interacted with and begging for help

I've heard absolutely nothing. For point of reference, I've sent out 140+ applications to overwhelmingly "non-competitive" clerkships in D.Ct. and COA (about half and half) and have heard nothing. School is within 15-20 rankings and I'm top 10% of my class. No idea. I'm clueless.

For the record, many of us at T14 schools also have not heard anything whatsoever. The consensus I've heard from other applicants, OCSs, other reputable sources, is that competitive judges moved quick on the tippy-top candidates... but there's still going to be plenty left over after that dust settles, plus the vast majority of judges haven't moved whatsoever. I'm repeatedly being told not to give up hope by any means. I think we all just thought everything would happen immediately under the plan, and since that hasn't panned out for the vast majority of applicants, there's panic.

There are more clerkships to go around. Top HYS student here, only got two interviews during first week. A friend at a different HYS but with comparable grades hasn't heard anything yet.

That's really comforting to hear as someone who's top ~15-20% at HYS and has heard absolutely nothing so far. (Granted, I largely applied to 2, 9, and SDNY, but still.) I'm hoping there's movement this week though. I've forgotten what it feels like for my phone to ring...

Anon who had two interviews. My sense is that certain top 5% students had several interviews minutes after the Plan opened (these are students I imagine the clerkship committee pushed prior to the Plan opening, meaning the Plan was violated, no?) and the "rest" of us top 10% had a smattering of interviews. I also only applied to 2/9/DC as did my friend at a different HYS.

I know someone who got an interview 10 minutes after the plan opened. There certainly was cheating.

[Anonymous User]

From recent grad perspective/speculation: I know this may be disheartening to hear now, but I think there may have been less movement than anticipated because a lot of judges were already fully hired for 2020 (and some even 2021...I had multiple 2021 interviews last summer (including one for a judge who had recently posted for 2020 on OSCAR, and then when I got to the interview she told me she had long filled those spots, but would I be interested in 2021?), and I have a classmate who landed a 2024 clerkship last summer). The non-plan world was total chaos. And now that there's some sort of plan, some judges might be readjusting. They've already hired into the future (or at least through 2020), but now they feel less of a rush to interview or hire beyond that because they want to come closer to adhering to the plan or they aren't getting bombarded with 1L applications and such.

So keep your head up. There's hiring going on year round, so just keep trying and waiting patiently.

[Anonymous User]

a lot of judges were already fully hired for 2020 .

IMO this is how a lot of law school clerkship committees/career centers screwed class of 2020 by telling us to adhere to the plan and wait for OSCAR

[Anonymous User]

FWIW, I'm top 5% at HYS + law review/journal, and I had 0 interviews last week.

Did you apply to only uber competitive judges?

First anon here. I wouldn't say they were all "uber" competitive. I applied to ~50 judges mostly (but not exclusively) in 2/9/DC. My clerkship office was surprised, but was still confident I'll get something eventually

[Anonymous User]

a lot of judges were already fully hired for 2020 .

IMO this is how a lot of law school clerkship committees/career centers screwed class of 2020 by telling us to adhere to the plan and wait for OSCAR

But there was nothing I could do about the situation. My school would not release recommendations to judges before June 17, so even if I applied by paper (which not all judges even allow), my application would have been incomplete. And if schools took the contrary position, allowing professors to submit recommendations at any time, the plan would have crumbled long ago.

I think the the issue with the 2020-21 term (the catch-2020, if you will) was unavoidable for the class of 2020. We simply had the poor fortune of being the first class to which the plan applied.

[Anonymous User]

FWIW, I'm top 5% at HYS + law review/journal, and I had 0 interviews last week.

Did you apply to only uber competitive judges?

First anon here. I wouldn't say they were all "uber" competitive. I applied to ~50 judges mostly (but not exclusively) in 2/9/DC. My clerkship office was surprised, but was still confident I'll get something eventually

That's wild. I'm prob around ~10% at Y/S, applied to ~20ish in 2/9/DC and had only a handful of interviews. I have no doubt you'll get something great soon.

[Anonymous User]

a lot of judges were already fully hired for 2020 .

IMO this is how a lot of law school clerkship committees/career centers screwed class of 2020 by telling us to adhere to the plan and wait for OSCAR

But there was nothing I could do about the situation. My school would not release recommendations to judges before June 17, so even if I applied by paper (which not all judges even allow), my application would have been incomplete. And if schools took the contrary position, allowing professors to submit recommendations at any time, the plan would have crumbled long ago.

I think the the issue with the 2020-21 term (the catch-2020, if you will) was unavoidable for the class of 2020. We simply had the poor fortune of being the first class to which the plan applied.

And yet my school was pushing every 2L to send 100+ paper applications and hounding professors to get in recommendations back in August of last year and continued up until June 17. Yet consensus seems to be that most judges ignored our "premature" paper applications.

[Anonymous User]

FWIW, I'm top 5% at HYS + law review/journal, and I had 0 interviews last week.

Did you apply to only uber competitive judges?

First anon here. I wouldn't say they were all "uber" competitive. I applied to ~50 judges mostly (but not exclusively) in 2/9/DC. My clerkship office was surprised, but was still confident I'll get something eventually

That's wild. I'm prob around ~10% at Y/S, applied to ~20ish in 2/9/DC and had only a handful of interviews. I have no doubt you'll get something great soon.

I'm in a similar boat first anon, HYS, top ~25% (I'd guess), secondary journal, had my professors call, sent out 50+ apps to district courts, definitely not all uber-competitive ones, heard nada. Being told to just be patient.

[Anonymous User]

a lot of judges were already fully hired for 2020 .

IMO this is how a lot of law school clerkship committees/career centers screwed class of 2020 by telling us to adhere to the plan and wait for OSCAR

But there was nothing I could do about the situation. My school would not release recommendations to judges before June 17, so even if I applied by paper (which not all judges even allow), my application would have been incomplete. And if schools took the contrary position, allowing professors to submit recommendations at any time, the plan would have crumbled long ago.

I think the the issue with the 2020-21 term (the catch-2020, if you will) was unavoidable for the class of 2020. We simply had the poor fortune of being the first class to which the plan applied.

And yet my school was pushing every 2L to send 100+ paper applications and hounding professors to get in recommendations back in August of last year and continued up until June 17. Yet consensus seems to be that most judges ignored our "premature" paper applications.

Same here. Got a bunch of interviews post June 17th but heard not a peep before despite sending numerous apps.

[Anonymous User]

FWIW, I'm top 5% at HYS + law review/journal, and I had 0 interviews last week.

Did you apply to only uber competitive judges?

First anon here. I wouldn't say they were all "uber" competitive. I applied to ~50 judges mostly (but not exclusively) in 2/9/DC. My clerkship office was surprised, but was still confident I'll get something eventually

That's wild. I'm prob around ~10% at Y/S, applied to ~20ish in 2/9/DC and had only a handful of interviews. I have no doubt you'll get something great soon.

I'm in a similar boat first anon, HYS, top ~25% (I'd guess), secondary journal, had my professors call, sent out 50+ apps to district courts, definitely not all uber-competitive ones, heard nada. Being told to just be patient.

You and I have basically the same profile and reaction. Gotta have solidarity man. It's tough our there.

[Anonymous User]

Movement in D.Del today

Which judge(s), if you don't mind me asking?

[notorious_mig]

What if it’s a resume update?

I think the above still generally applies. Our application window was not so big that people would likely be adding substantial new things to their resume. At best the update would be an address change, or like finalizing a GPA or something? I'm not recalling any time when someone added any new substantive experience, which is something that would have been considered by us.

But in general, i'm saying that if you were dinged on the basis of a single thing and that thing is the one you update, I'd look at it. Ifyou were dinged for multiple things, then updating one of them would most like not get a new look. The only exception to this is if we felt we needed more candidates in our pool or something, we might look at it then, too.

Re: resume update: a paper I wrote just got accepted for presentation at a conference. Would this be worth an update to my resume in OSCAR?

[Anonymous User]

Since it was comforting for me to read that others haven't heard a peep either, I'll just chime in to say that top 10% at CCN + law review here, I've had professors calling, and I've heard nothing. Applied mostly to D Cts in 9 & 7.

[Anonymous User]

FWIW, I'm top 5% at HYS + law review/journal, and I had 0 interviews last week.

Did you apply to only uber competitive judges?

First anon here. I wouldn't say they were all "uber" competitive. I applied to ~50 judges mostly (but not exclusively) in 2/9/DC. My clerkship office was surprised, but was still confident I'll get something eventually

That's wild. I'm prob around ~10% at Y/S, applied to ~20ish in 2/9/DC and had only a handful of interviews. I have no doubt you'll get something great soon.

Is this serious? A handful is a LOT, especially when you only applied to 20ish judges, and all in competitive circuits...

[Anonymous User]

FWIW, I'm top 5% at HYS + law review/journal, and I had 0 interviews last week.

Did you apply to only uber competitive judges?

First anon here. I wouldn't say they were all "uber" competitive. I applied to ~50 judges mostly (but not exclusively) in 2/9/DC. My clerkship office was surprised, but was still confident I'll get something eventually

That's wild. I'm prob around ~10% at Y/S, applied to ~20ish in 2/9/DC and had only a handful of interviews. I have no doubt you'll get something great soon.

Is this serious? A handful is a LOT, especially when you only applied to 20ish judges, and all in competitive circuits...

Handful anon: handful is 3.

[Anonymous User]

FWIW, I'm top 5% at HYS + law review/journal, and I had 0 interviews last week.

Did you apply to only uber competitive judges?

First anon here. I wouldn't say they were all "uber" competitive. I applied to ~50 judges mostly (but not exclusively) in 2/9/DC. My clerkship office was surprised, but was still confident I'll get something eventually

That's wild. I'm prob around ~10% at Y/S, applied to ~20ish in 2/9/DC and had only a handful of interviews. I have no doubt you'll get something great soon.

Is this serious? A handful is a LOT, especially when you only applied to 20ish judges, and all in competitive circuits...

Haha yes, shoutout to the handful of people who have been saying things like “I only got a few interviews, should I give up hope????” You don’t have an obligation to consider the feelz of internet randos, but you might want to avoid saying such things IRL

[Anonymous User]

a lot of judges were already fully hired for 2020 .

IMO this is how a lot of law school clerkship committees/career centers screwed class of 2020 by telling us to adhere to the plan and wait for OSCAR

But there was nothing I could do about the situation. My school would not release recommendations to judges before June 17, so even if I applied by paper (which not all judges even allow), my application would have been incomplete. And if schools took the contrary position, allowing professors to submit recommendations at any time, the plan would have crumbled long ago.

I think the the issue with the 2020-21 term (the catch-2020, if you will) was unavoidable for the class of 2020. We simply had the poor fortune of being the first class to which the plan applied.

And yet my school was pushing every 2L to send 100+ paper applications and hounding professors to get in recommendations back in August of last year and continued up until June 17. Yet consensus seems to be that most judges ignored our "premature" paper applications.

Hello there, Washington University in St. Louis! (I'm not sure if it worked with any judges, but we certainly were impressed with your class's persistence. I feel like we got applications from everyone above median in the mail.)

[Anonymous User]

[quote=]Hello there, Washington University in St. Louis! (I'm not sure if it worked with any judges, but we certainly were impressed with your class's persistence. I feel like we got applications from everyone above median in the mail.)[/quote]

It's not just WashU that does this. There are/were others and it didn't leave the most positive of impressions with chambers. There's a point where schools who hard sell their candidates brings a negative return on investment.

[Anonymous User]

Hello there, Washington University in St. Louis! (I'm not sure if it worked with any judges, but we certainly were impressed with your class's persistence. I feel like we got applications from everyone above median in the mail.)

Well we appreciate that our hours and hours of printing and stuffing envelopes is at least recognized.

Now give one of us a damn call.

[lavarman84]

FWIW, I'm top 5% at HYS + law review/journal, and I had 0 interviews last week.

Did you apply to only uber competitive judges?

First anon here. I wouldn't say they were all "uber" competitive. I applied to ~50 judges mostly (but not exclusively) in 2/9/DC. My clerkship office was surprised, but was still confident I'll get something eventually

That's wild. I'm prob around ~10% at Y/S, applied to ~20ish in 2/9/DC and had only a handful of interviews. I have no doubt you'll get something great soon.

I'm in a similar boat first anon, HYS, top ~25% (I'd guess), secondary journal, had my professors call, sent out 50+ apps to district courts, definitely not all uber-competitive ones, heard nada. Being told to just be patient.

That's good advice. Be patient. I'm not trying to be a dick, but the judges and us law clerks have jobs to do. The entire judiciary isn't just going to drop everything to read your applications and interview candidates. I know the chambers in my courthouse have been going through applications and offering interviews, but they're nowhere near done at this point.

[Anonymous User]

FWIW, I'm top 5% at HYS + law review/journal, and I had 0 interviews last week.

Did you apply to only uber competitive judges?

First anon here. I wouldn't say they were all "uber" competitive. I applied to ~50 judges mostly (but not exclusively) in 2/9/DC. My clerkship office was surprised, but was still confident I'll get something eventually

That's wild. I'm prob around ~10% at Y/S, applied to ~20ish in 2/9/DC and had only a handful of interviews. I have no doubt you'll get something great soon.

I'm in a similar boat first anon, HYS, top ~25% (I'd guess), secondary journal, had my professors call, sent out 50+ apps to district courts, definitely not all uber-competitive ones, heard nada. Being told to just be patient.

That's good advice. Be patient. I'm not trying to be a dick, but the judges and us law clerks have jobs to do. The entire judiciary isn't just going to drop everything to read your applications and interview candidates. I know the chambers in my courthouse have been going through applications and offering interviews, but they're nowhere near done at this point.

This is going to sound crazy but to be honest, we’re moving a little slower with our HYS apps than with applicants from schools that give conventional grades. My co-clerks and I all went to grade-giving schools and none of us really know what to do with HYS grades (obvious DS/other awards are good, too many P’s is not so good, but none of us could tell you what ratio puts you in the top 25%, for example). So all of those applications really have to go to our judge for him/her to tell us who’s competitive, which is a more time consuming process, while we can immediately identify a 3.9 or a “top X%” for what it is and reach out to screen the candidate that day.

[Anonymous User]

I just want to chime in here as someone on the recommender side of things at a "T10" law school and who has therefore seen this process playing out for a number of my students at my institution over the past week: I think quality over quantity is the way to go. With my students, we spent the spring figuring out which judges were the right fits for them in terms of grades/location/ideology/career interests, and I had some honest conversations about judges that weren't realistic possibilities for people. We worked to narrow down a target 5 judges or so, and their other recommenders and I coordinated to reach out to those judges via email or phone, depending on whether there were prior connections. (And yes, all of these students are *well* above median, but those are also the people who should be getting clerkships.)

Without getting into specifics, things have gone really well for my students so far, because they tailored their application strategy to maximally enhance their chances, and they had multiple recommenders reach out on day 1 of the plan. (And for those skeptical of interviews offered 10 minutes into the plan and who think there must therefore have been cheating, remember that 10 minutes is more than enough time for three well positioned recommenders to call or email a judge about a single exceptionally strong candidate who is at the top of their class. For the feeder-type judges who are competitive about hiring, a person who is objectively one of the top people in their class and who comes highly recommended by 3+ recommenders the judge knows and trusts is someone that type of judge will pull the interview trigger in 10 minutes. A harried 10 minutes, yes, but no cheating.)

So, that being said, having read through all the posts above, I'll offer a few thoughts/reactions/advice that I hope is helpful:

Why You're Not Getting Interviews in 2 days
Having clerked at multiple levels in the federal judiciary, I am extremely skeptical that tossing out 50-100 applications with no targeted outreach will get you much interest within the first few days**of the plan (see below for **). As stated by a few people at various points in this thread: Most judges don't like hiring. It takes time, it's kind of annoying, many judges pursued this career precisely because they hate HR bureaucracy, and there are so many qualified people that sorting through it all in a systematic and even remotely non-arbitrary way is time-consuming and exhausting. Many judges also don't really like interviewing--which takes even more time--unless they already think there's a high probability they'll want to extend an offer. Why take the time only to have to reject someone you've interviewed, which is unpleasant in and of itself, and then have to start all over? And almost every judge I've known definitely doesn't want to be rejected if they extend an offer, unless it's for one of their colleagues and there's an impersonal reason (geography, judge's pre-judicial career matches applicant's career aspirations, etc.). This means that recommenders who take time and effort to recommend the kind of candidate who fits a judge's chambers/judicial ethos is worth their weight in gold.

**Now is this the only way to get a clerkship? Absolutely not. The benefit of the 50-100 apps approach is that not all chambers will fill all candidates via recommenders, and you only need a 1-2% hit rate off of 100 apps to get a clerkship. But the people who are seeing movement right off the bat are generally the people who have recommenders calling/emailing judges appropriate to the applicant and saying "this person is a strong candidate for you." On the hiring end of things, I can say that sorting through all the apps, getting a "semifinalist" group, having the judge look them over, calling references to hear more about the candidate before deciding whether to interview them, etc., takes a lot more time. Your app will still get considered, but not nearly as quickly as having three recommenders reach out at noon on June 17 and say "this person is a great fit for you, take a look."

Plan vs. No Plan
Also, as to the quirks of the plan, I'll say two quick things, having seen the last plan come and go, then seen off plan hiring, then seen this new system. First, they all had their own pros and cons, and I don't think one is uniformly better. At the margins, if I were an applicant at a top school, I'd prefer off-plan hiring, because it's more leisurely and you can afford to be more targeted in who you apply to. On plan necessitates one huge push and the need to apply to a lot more judges all at once, which is more hectic, more stressful, and raises expectations. But off plan hiring favored the connected even more, because knowing knowing when judges were looking to hire was half the battle, and those in the know knew. Knowledge was power in that system much more than it is now. But either way, most applicants need(ed) several recommenders going to bat for them, whether to get hiring information off plan, or to make their candidate stand out of the huge on plan pile. No system short of a random lottery or a Medical Residency Match system can mitigate the importance of recommenders in this process.

Second, there is one way the new plan is uniformly better than the old plan and why, sitting as a recommender, I am a fan of the new plan: judges are expected to give students 48 hours to decide on an offer, and every judge my students have had offers with have abided by this, albeit with soft pressure to decide sooner. That was the most pernicious aspect of the old plan, because it meant that judges were racing to be the first one to interview students, and students felt they had no control over the process once the judge called to extend an interview. It also led to more cheating on the judges side of things because offering the first interview became really important, so it was an arms race to be the one calling a student at 9 a.m. on the dot, and an arms race by students to be the first one in the chambers door to interview. For this reason alone, I think the new plan is better. (And yes, this was a "problem" for an admittedly small number of candidates lucky enough to get multiple offers within 48 hours, but it still sucks for students to feel coerced into taking a job they don't really want.)

re: C/O 2020 specifically
Several folks on here have complained about the Class of 2020 getting screwed as the first class on the plan. To be honest, I think that's less the problem than simply the fact that judges had already hired far, far out in the off-plan world, and at some point, some class had to be the readjustment class, and it happens to be yours. That sucks, but it's not the plan's fault, it's the federal judiciary's fault for hiring second-semester 2Ls in early 2017 for clerkships in 2021 or 2022. (And yeah, that was happening. A lot.) But note, again as someone said earlier, the vast majority of federal clerkship positions go to lawyers who are 1+ years out of law school. Straight-through clerking is less and less common for lots of reasons. So while I am totally empathetic to the frustration here, I don't think the plan had much to do with that, as it was already a huge problem and continues to be. (And thank you boomer judges for finding one more way to screw over indebted millennials by keeping them in a series of sub-$100k one-year positions well into their earlier 30's...)

Tl;dr, I hope this is helpful. If there's any three pieces of advice I could give, it'd be (1) to develop a targeted strategy and have honest conversations with your recommenders about who they think you're a strong fit for, (2) be realistic about this process and about how few people get clerkships within days of the plan and for the year right after graduation; and (3) to be patient. Far more people will get hired after the first week than during the first week. Good luck to everyone in this process!

[Anonymous User]

Just putting this out there in case there's anyone on this forum that isn't top 10% at HYS I'm happy for the HYS people, but I don't know that you'll find this helpful. I hope others do.

*gets on soapbox*
I think this thread is freaking some people out. I wanted to let you know that I called a few chambers yesterday (non 2/9/DC and some magistrate) to find out if they were still accepting applications for 2020. Every single one answered yes. There are still clerkships out there that haven't been filled. I'm three years out of law school, so I'm pretty far removed from the job hunting process (until now, haha), but I still remember the absolutely paralyzing fear I felt when it was January of 3L and I didn't have a clerkship. I eventually got one (albeit, a state clerkship) and it turned out fine.
Law schools will push you to think that there's only one path to being a successful lawyer and that's just not true. I don't want to give too much away about my past because I am still currently employed at a firm and my somewhat unique journey is easily identifiable, but I've had a great three years between clerking and working at a firm, and now I'm going back to clerking because I want to shift to a different practice. There are many ways to get to where you want to be and where you want to be will change.
Just keep applying, keep pushing, and keep your chin up!