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I just finished my SA and have an offer for the litigation group. I want to practice at the firm for a year or two and then apply for clerkships. What amount of my recommendations should come from professors rather than partners when applying with experience? Should I wait to ask for those recommendations from professors or start seeking them out now?

If you’re a rising 3L hoping to clerk after 1-2 years, if you’re thinking federal clerkships, you should be applying now. I think standard wisdom is recommendations from professors unless you are applying while already at the firm with experience at the time of your application.

I agree that you should be applying now for 1-2 years out. A couple years at a firm is not long enough to rely on partner recommendations over professor recommendations. Maybe one (of your three or four) letters could be from a law firm partner you worked for (preferably a big name partner), but no more. If you want a clerkship, you need to develop/maintain relationships with professors, because for whatever reason, judges look very highly on professor recs, and much less so on law firm partner recs (unless they have a personal relationship with the partner, or the partner is a household name).

ETA: If you mean that you want to spend 1-2 years at a firm, and then apply for a term 2 years out from that date, meaning you would leave to clerk as a 4th or 5th year, I think this advice still stands. Maybe at that point you could get away with 2 partner letters and 2 professor letters, but I still wouldn't rely entirely on partners' recommendations. tl;dr: maintain your relationships with professors.

anonymous117 wrote:If you’re a rising 3L hoping to clerk after 1-2 years, if you’re thinking federal clerkships, you should be applying now. I think standard wisdom is recommendations from professors unless you are applying while already at the firm with experience at the time of your application.

Ok thanks for this. Do state supreme courts tend to hire only for the upcoming term?

I did this and used 2 professor letters and 1 work letter. Definitely ask professors if they'd be willing to write rec letters for you now, while you are fresh in their memory, and keep their assistants looped in on your plans, e.g., if you do some research and find out your top-choice judges won't hire for your preferred term for 2 more years, let them know you won't apply immediately. It was much easier for me to come back to professors post-grad and tell them they had previously agreed to write a letter for me and request an updated letter than to cold email them years later.

Be warned, some firms have policies against partners writing rec letters, so that's yet another reason to have at least some professor recommendations locked down. Good luck and congrats on the offer.

Anonymous User wrote:

anonymous117 wrote:If you’re a rising 3L hoping to clerk after 1-2 years, if you’re thinking federal clerkships, you should be applying now. I think standard wisdom is recommendations from professors unless you are applying while already at the firm with experience at the time of your application.

Ok thanks for this. Do state supreme courts tend to hire only for the upcoming term?

No.

Anonymous User wrote:

anonymous117 wrote:If you’re a rising 3L hoping to clerk after 1-2 years, if you’re thinking federal clerkships, you should be applying now. I think standard wisdom is recommendations from professors unless you are applying while already at the firm with experience at the time of your application.

Ok thanks for this. Do state supreme courts tend to hire only for the upcoming term?

It depends on the state (and maybe in some states, I’m sure there’s variation between justices). In my home state, they all hire on the same timeline one year in advance.

Is it ok to ask a professor you worked for as an RA for an LOR or does it have to be one you got a grade from?

Anonymous User wrote:Is it ok to ask a professor you worked for as an RA for an LOR or does it have to be one you got a grade from?

Its okay so long as you did enough for that professor that they can credibly recommend you and sing your praises. You dont want to ask a professor you RAed for if you suspect the LOR might say something like "he was my RA and he was diligent in completing assigned research tasks, but I never graded his work so I am not sure how brilliant he is" instead of "he was my RA and he did amazing work for me, he found XYZ for me when nobody else could, and he made a connection between A and B that I had overlooked, and which greatly improved the quality of the article I wrote."

I am in a similar position, except I'm going the PI route. (If I get one of the PI fellowships, I'll be doing civil rights litigation for two years after graduation.) Is it really recommended that I start applying now for 2022? It looks like many of the judges I'm interested in only have clerkship openings for 2020.

I clerked for a judge who only hired people with 2+ years of experience. Although he did not really care too much about LORs generally, he wanted at least one work reference. More importantly, he wanted only work-related writing samples. That’s another thing to keep in mind.