do law schools oversell clerkships? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Do you think the utility of most judicial clerkships are oversold by law schools? I'm coming to the end of my term and looking back I kind of wish I had used the time of this last year in private practice.

[Anonymous User]

Guess it depends a bit on your overall goal, the rest of your background, and exactly what you mean by "utility". I do think having a year of getting to basically practice legal research and writing before entering private practice is going to be a positive no matter what as long as those skills are relevant to whatever you end up practicing (and assuming your working under someone, might matter less if you went off as a solo.)

Outside of more practical terms I do think clerkships are a strong resume line item, but that the benefit of a clerkship when it comes to finding a new job is a bit overstated maybe. I clerked in a flyover district for a terrible judge with a slow, irrelevant docket, and I was still able to leverage that into a new gig that will hopefully allow me to bypass big law and head straight down a more satisfying career path (fingers crossed it works out that way...) but it required a combo of hustling, my clerkship and going to a good school. The clerkship alone only adds so much.

I do think spending one year out of what will likely be a 30+ year career adding on something that will always be part of your career bio is for lack of a better word pretty "efficient".

What do you feel like you would have accomplished with a year in private practice that you can't do now?

[Wild Card]

I do think spending one year out of what will likely be a 30+ year career adding on something that will always be part of your career bio is for lack of a better word pretty "efficient".

I agree. Especially if we're talking about biglaw, where the five-year survival rate is 25%. What are you going to do for the 25-year+ remainder of your career? Contract attorney?

[nixy]

Yeah, it depends what you want to do. If you’re set on a corporate firm for life, probably oversold. If you have a crappy experience, arguably oversold. Personally, I found the experience super valuable, but 1) I had a judge who was an excellent mentor who taught me a ton about writing/arguing, 2) I’m diehard lit, and 3) I’m in a job I’d never have been able to get without a clerkship on my resume.

That said, for people who are using a clerkship only to get a second shot at biglaw when they struck out the first time, it’s not necessarily going to transform you as an applicant. It more gives you time to do all the hustling/networking needed to get into a better job.

Edit to add: it’s also possible that a specific school oversells clerkships (particularly state ones) because they look good on ABA reports and disguise poor ultimate employment prospects.

[Anonymous User]

Anon here. I have a job lined up in lit when this is over, and I practiced briefly before doing the clerkship. I'm in a flyover state with a judge who has no interest in mentorship, talking generally about judicial philosophy, or even really discussing cases. I sit alone in an office and draft opinions and the judge rubber-stamps them. My colleagues in private practice have used the last two years to work on interesting cases, gain deposition skills, etc. Here I feel as though I've been frozen in stone and will have to play catch-up when I return. My law school played federal clerkships up like they were this amazing, unforgettable mentorship opportunity but that has not been my reality. I suppose TCR is that it just depends on the type of judge you work for. I'm terribly disappointed in mine. I suppose it won't hurt my resume to have this under my belt but I think if I had a do-over I would have preferred getting more experience in private practice over being stuck in this ivory tower with a completely uninterested (and frankly quite rude and unethical) judge.

[nixy]

That sucks, I’m sorry your experience wasn’t better. Personally I also found it helpful to get an understanding of how litigation works, which I think can transfer regardless of how helpful your judge is, but I can see that that would be frustrating.

[justanotherlurker]

Even if you're sitting in a room churning out motions that the judge rubber-stamps, I think you may find that the experience of being on that side of the bench extremely helpful. It's a very different experience being the person who reads the briefs and makes a judgment call about who is right, versus having to argue the side that your client hands to you.

Take note of what kinds of briefs are successful and persuasive to you. Take note of the kinds of procedural things matter. What substantive things are you relying on now that you'll want to make sure to do as a litigant. For example, what does it take to satisfy the Iqbal/Twombly standard? What does it take to create a genuine dispute of material fact and defeat summary judgment? How do you feel about discovery motions -- who looked good, who looked bad, and why? What styles of oral argument have been effective, and which have turned you off to that attorney's position?

It's that kind of perspective you simply can't get in a year or two as a junior associate. Sure, you would have known how to use Relativity earlier or, even, taken depos earlier (maybe). But the kind of big-picture sense of how a case is won from a judge's perspective is the kind of thing that most junior associates don't have and is hard to develop without actually doing that job.

[Elston Gunn]

1. Federal clerkships are imo oversold in their substantive value because the value is far more variable than most students are led to believe. To me, this is driven more by norms that clerks observe than schools. The only acceptable answer to “How was your clerkship?” is some version of “It was an amazing learning experience. I loved working for my judge.” But the reality is lots of people have experiences like you, OP, you’re just not supposed to admit it. (I had a great experience, but plenty of people do not.)

2. However, as others have said, an AIII is genuinely a super valuable resume item even if it was a substantively bad experience. This is especially true if you want to work for the federal government. So I would not consider the year wasted at all.

[Anonymous User]

While federal clerkships definitely have more variable substantive experience then schools let on I still feel like its less variable then private practice where experiences can range from actually spending time in court to doc review hell within the same firm.

It sounds like original anon had a two year clerkship, and I can see how in the moment two years early in your career with a shitty clerkship is going to feel like a bigger blow, although I'm guessing long term its still going to be worth it careerwise, especially if people trust you enough at the next gig to let you take on substantive work earlier because you clerked.

I would caution against weighing what you've heard from your classmates too heavioy, its like looking at someone's social media: you're going to get a slightly distorted view of how much substantive work people are actually getting.

[Elston Gunn]

While federal clerkships definitely have more variable substantive experience then schools let on I still feel like its less variable then private practice where experiences can range from actually spending time in court to doc review hell within the same firm.

It sounds like original anon had a two year clerkship, and I can see how in the moment two years early in your career with a shitty clerkship is going to feel like a bigger blow, although I'm guessing long term its still going to be worth it careerwise, especially if people trust you enough at the next gig to let you take on substantive work earlier because you clerked.

I would caution against weighing what you've heard from your classmates too heavioy, its like looking at someone's social media: you're going to get a slightly distorted view of how much substantive work people are actually getting.

Yup, agree with this completely. Even a “bad” clerkship experience is usually going to be better from a skill development perspective than the median year in private practice, and you shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that litigation juniors in biglaw are routinely doing cool assignments (especially juniors who haven’t clerked!).

[Vursz]

I may be in the minority here, but just to add onto what’s already been said: clerking is a pretty significant financial hit, and the opportunity cost has gotten worse as biglaw salaries have increased. The bonus doesn’t make up for the cost, especially if you do more than one. And that, in turn, can make it tougher to leave biglaw down the line even if cool job opportunities present themselves.