Penn Clerkship Discussion/Movement Forum

[Anonymous User]

Any tips for the new 1Ls?

I’ll start:
-Phone in LPS, no one cares if you get Honors, focus on your real classes instead
-Do not trust OCS for anything. Apply on your own and don’t listen to their silly rules
-Make friends and be nice to everyone
-Don’t take intense electives in 1L spring like Property and especially Admin, wait til you have your job
-Don’t join a journal if you want to be corporate and do not join ALR 1L year.

[Anonymous User]

Any tips for the new 1Ls?

I’ll start:
-Phone in LPS, no one cares if you get Honors, focus on your real classes instead
-Do not trust OCS for anything. Apply on your own and don’t listen to their silly rules
-Make friends and be nice to everyone
-Don’t take intense electives in 1L spring like Property and especially Admin, wait til you have your job
-Don’t join a journal if you want to be corporate and do not join ALR 1L year.

Agree on the first three. But admin with Lee is not that hard if you know how to use an outline on a 24 hour exam, and it’s easier to beat the curve in a harder class whereas classes like repro are harder to work your way to an A. I got an A in admin without doing any of the reading because there’s so many excellent outlines and you have time to look up anything you don’t know during the exam. Admin is easier if you follow news around government and politics.

I’ll add that you DO need to study for the bluebooking competition if you want to get on law review, and you either need to dedicate most of the entire period between your last exam and the bluebooking test to studying or you need to study before 1L spring finals.

Really can’t stress enough that OCS is unbelievably incompetent.

Low key journals really don’t take up much time as a 2L and you can quit before 3L, but do NOT do multiple journals. It’s ridiculous that people do that here.

[Anonymous User]

Stay away from the negative energy and toxic personalities.

Don’t be intimidated by professors.

Try to knock off the pro bono requirement ASAP. It’s kind of stupid because who wants someone for 35 hours? Just get it done, makes no sense but we have to do it.

And make friends.

(Also completely agree that LPS doesn’t matter. I used to ditch the “cohort” class or whatever it was called every Friday and that was the best decision I made to reclaim my Fridays. Cohort and the Fellows are a joke, they are just two years ahead of you. For all the money we pay in tuition, you’d think you could get an actual professor instead of some 25 year old kid).

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard about Bibas and his willingness to help students who did well in his class but aren't clerking for him? Are his LoR strong and does he make calls?

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard about Bibas and his willingness to help students who did well in his class but aren't clerking for him? Are his LoR strong and does he make calls?

Bibas is very willing to help people out, assuming he likes you. I know of multiple people he's been helpful to, even though they weren't FedSoc and didn't get an A in his class. Does not, however, make phone calls (to the best of my knowledge; I might very well be wrong).

How do I get a clerkship with Bibas? I just take his classes (signed up for his fall PR class) and approach him or he approaches me? What grades are needed? how about Scirica?

Look at who he's hired over the past several years from here. They're FedSoc summas/magnas, and he generally hires early, during 1L. I do know of upperclassmen who've gotten interviews with him, but they were for later terms.

Fair warning that his PR curve is brutal, unlike other PR courses at Penn where everyone gets an A. A couple of years ago the class had like ten people in it and he only gave out one A. Last year was two or three As, I believe, but the class was a bit bigger.

Any tips for the new 1Ls?
...
-Don’t join a journal if you want to be corporate and do not join ALR 1L year.

I disagree with this if the journal in question is Law Review. The workload isn't much. Here's the big secret they don't tell you: Law Review is less work than the other journals because they're never understaffed. The people who bitch about LR workload are just lazy. Assignments take two three hours at best to do well, and if you phone it in, much less than that.

The benefits more than make up for it, whether those be career-wise (definite plus for me during OCI even though I was 100% corp), prestige, outline bank, use of the office (severely underrated imo), parties/retreats, so on and so forth.

I think there's still value in the secondaries—especially if you play your cards right; not very hard to be EIC of one of those, they practically need to beg people—but if you're doubling down on corporate I understand declining membership if you don't make Law Review.

Try to knock off the pro bono requirement ASAP. It’s kind of stupid because who wants someone for 35 hours? Just get it done, makes no sense but we have to do it.

Protip: one unit from an externship, internship, or clinic can be exchanged for 35 pro bono hours. You can do this for each externship/internship/clinic you complete. In other words, you can graduate from the Law School having never completed a single hour of pro bono.

If your externship or clinic was pass/fail, it's a no-brainer (especially since pass/fail units are bad in the grand scheme of things). If you got a letter grade—which should've been an A—up to you whether it's worth losing it from your GPA calculation.

Anyone else disappointed about the fall class offerings? Fed courts hasn't been offered in two semesters now, and they only added one evidence section with a retired adjunct as an afterthought.

I’m still mad they have Amy Wax teach the only section of remedies

And the curve is apparently brutal haha

Wait seriously???

I heard all B’s!!! Ruthless

Bullshit. I know of at least one A- in last semester's class.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard about Bibas and his willingness to help students who did well in his class but aren't clerking for him? Are his LoR strong and does he make calls?

Bibas is very willing to help people out, assuming he likes you. I know of multiple people he's been helpful to, even though they weren't FedSoc and didn't get an A in his class. Does not, however, make phone calls (to the best of my knowledge; I might very well be wrong).

How do I get a clerkship with Bibas? I just take his classes (signed up for his fall PR class) and approach him or he approaches me? What grades are needed? how about Scirica?

Look at who he's hired over the past several years from here. They're FedSoc summas/magnas, and he generally hires early, during 1L. I do know of upperclassmen who've gotten interviews with him, but they were for later terms.

Fair warning that his PR curve is brutal, unlike other PR courses at Penn where everyone gets an A. A couple of years ago the class had like ten people in it and he only gave out one A. Last year was two or three As, I believe, but the class was a bit bigger.

Any tips for the new 1Ls?
...
-Don’t join a journal if you want to be corporate and do not join ALR 1L year.

I disagree with this if the journal in question is Law Review. The workload isn't much. Here's the big secret they don't tell you: Law Review is less work than the other journals because they're never understaffed. The people who bitch about LR workload are just lazy. Assignments take two three hours at best to do well, and if you phone it in, much less than that.

The benefits more than make up for it, whether those be career-wise (definite plus for me during OCI even though I was 100% corp), prestige, outline bank, use of the office (severely underrated imo), parties/retreats, so on and so forth.

I think there's still value in the secondaries—especially if you play your cards right; not very hard to be EIC of one of those, they practically need to beg people—but if you're doubling down on corporate I understand declining membership if you don't make Law Review.

Try to knock off the pro bono requirement ASAP. It’s kind of stupid because who wants someone for 35 hours? Just get it done, makes no sense but we have to do it.

Protip: one unit from an externship, internship, or clinic can be exchanged for 35 pro bono hours. You can do this for each externship/internship/clinic you complete. In other words, you can graduate from the Law School having never completed a single hour of pro bono.

If your externship or clinic was pass/fail, it's a no-brainer (especially since pass/fail units are bad in the grand scheme of things). If you got a letter grade—which should've been an A—up to you whether it's worth losing it from your GPA calculation.

Anyone else disappointed about the fall class offerings? Fed courts hasn't been offered in two semesters now, and they only added one evidence section with a retired adjunct as an afterthought.

I’m still mad they have Amy Wax teach the only section of remedies

And the curve is apparently brutal haha

Wait seriously???

I heard all B’s!!! Ruthless

Bullshit. I know of at least one A- in last semester's class.

Ridiculous to suggest that LR is less work or the same compared to other journals, if only because there are more edits and you can’t quit for 3L year. Anyone with a friend on LR (everyone) can use the outline bank and the office.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard about Bibas and his willingness to help students who did well in his class but aren't clerking for him? Are his LoR strong and does he make calls?

Bibas is very willing to help people out, assuming he likes you. I know of multiple people he's been helpful to, even though they weren't FedSoc and didn't get an A in his class. Does not, however, make phone calls (to the best of my knowledge; I might very well be wrong).

How do I get a clerkship with Bibas? I just take his classes (signed up for his fall PR class) and approach him or he approaches me? What grades are needed? how about Scirica?

Look at who he's hired over the past several years from here. They're FedSoc summas/magnas, and he generally hires early, during 1L. I do know of upperclassmen who've gotten interviews with him, but they were for later terms.

Fair warning that his PR curve is brutal, unlike other PR courses at Penn where everyone gets an A. A couple of years ago the class had like ten people in it and he only gave out one A. Last year was two or three As, I believe, but the class was a bit bigger.

Any tips for the new 1Ls?
...
-Don’t join a journal if you want to be corporate and do not join ALR 1L year.

I disagree with this if the journal in question is Law Review. The workload isn't much. Here's the big secret they don't tell you: Law Review is less work than the other journals because they're never understaffed. The people who bitch about LR workload are just lazy. Assignments take two three hours at best to do well, and if you phone it in, much less than that.

The benefits more than make up for it, whether those be career-wise (definite plus for me during OCI even though I was 100% corp), prestige, outline bank, use of the office (severely underrated imo), parties/retreats, so on and so forth.

I think there's still value in the secondaries—especially if you play your cards right; not very hard to be EIC of one of those, they practically need to beg people—but if you're doubling down on corporate I understand declining membership if you don't make Law Review.

Try to knock off the pro bono requirement ASAP. It’s kind of stupid because who wants someone for 35 hours? Just get it done, makes no sense but we have to do it.

Protip: one unit from an externship, internship, or clinic can be exchanged for 35 pro bono hours. You can do this for each externship/internship/clinic you complete. In other words, you can graduate from the Law School having never completed a single hour of pro bono.

If your externship or clinic was pass/fail, it's a no-brainer (especially since pass/fail units are bad in the grand scheme of things). If you got a letter grade—which should've been an A—up to you whether it's worth losing it from your GPA calculation.

Anyone else disappointed about the fall class offerings? Fed courts hasn't been offered in two semesters now, and they only added one evidence section with a retired adjunct as an afterthought.

I’m still mad they have Amy Wax teach the only section of remedies

And the curve is apparently brutal haha

Wait seriously???

I heard all B’s!!! Ruthless

Bullshit. I know of at least one A- in last semester's class.

Ridiculous to suggest that LR is less work or the same compared to other journals, if only because there are more edits and you can’t quit for 3L year. Anyone with a friend on LR (everyone) can use the outline bank and the office.

It is less work. I only ever had 40ish footnotes while my friends on secondaries regularly got 70-80. Granted, there are a couple more assignments over the course of the year, but it's still very manageable. The only respect in which LR is "more work" is the writing requirement, but all you have to do is take a paper class and you're done (and you get senior writing too).

On not being able to quit as a 3L: so what? 3L editors don't do a damn thing. They have one assignment over the summer that everyone half-asses and that's the end of that. It's a joke.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard about Bibas and his willingness to help students who did well in his class but aren't clerking for him? Are his LoR strong and does he make calls?

Bibas is very willing to help people out, assuming he likes you. I know of multiple people he's been helpful to, even though they weren't FedSoc and didn't get an A in his class. Does not, however, make phone calls (to the best of my knowledge; I might very well be wrong).

How do I get a clerkship with Bibas? I just take his classes (signed up for his fall PR class) and approach him or he approaches me? What grades are needed? how about Scirica?

Look at who he's hired over the past several years from here. They're FedSoc summas/magnas, and he generally hires early, during 1L. I do know of upperclassmen who've gotten interviews with him, but they were for later terms.

Fair warning that his PR curve is brutal, unlike other PR courses at Penn where everyone gets an A. A couple of years ago the class had like ten people in it and he only gave out one A. Last year was two or three As, I believe, but the class was a bit bigger.

Any tips for the new 1Ls?
...
-Don’t join a journal if you want to be corporate and do not join ALR 1L year.

I disagree with this if the journal in question is Law Review. The workload isn't much. Here's the big secret they don't tell you: Law Review is less work than the other journals because they're never understaffed. The people who bitch about LR workload are just lazy. Assignments take two three hours at best to do well, and if you phone it in, much less than that.

The benefits more than make up for it, whether those be career-wise (definite plus for me during OCI even though I was 100% corp), prestige, outline bank, use of the office (severely underrated imo), parties/retreats, so on and so forth.

I think there's still value in the secondaries—especially if you play your cards right; not very hard to be EIC of one of those, they practically need to beg people—but if you're doubling down on corporate I understand declining membership if you don't make Law Review.

Try to knock off the pro bono requirement ASAP. It’s kind of stupid because who wants someone for 35 hours? Just get it done, makes no sense but we have to do it.

Protip: one unit from an externship, internship, or clinic can be exchanged for 35 pro bono hours. You can do this for each externship/internship/clinic you complete. In other words, you can graduate from the Law School having never completed a single hour of pro bono.

If your externship or clinic was pass/fail, it's a no-brainer (especially since pass/fail units are bad in the grand scheme of things). If you got a letter grade—which should've been an A—up to you whether it's worth losing it from your GPA calculation.

I’m still mad they have Amy Wax teach the only section of remedies

And the curve is apparently brutal haha

Wait seriously???

I heard all B’s!!! Ruthless

Bullshit. I know of at least one A- in last semester's class.

Ridiculous to suggest that LR is less work or the same compared to other journals, if only because there are more edits and you can’t quit for 3L year. Anyone with a friend on LR (everyone) can use the outline bank and the office.

It is less work. I only ever had 40ish footnotes while my friends on secondaries regularly got 70-80. Granted, there are a couple more assignments over the course of the year, but it's still very manageable. The only respect in which LR is "more work" is the writing requirement, but all you have to do is take a paper class and you're done (and you get senior writing too).

On not being able to quit as a 3L: so what? 3L editors don't do a damn thing. They have one assignment over the summer that everyone half-asses and that's the end of that. It's a joke.

“Law review is less work” is certainly a take…

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard about Bibas and his willingness to help students who did well in his class but aren't clerking for him? Are his LoR strong and does he make calls?

Bibas is very willing to help people out, assuming he likes you. I know of multiple people he's been helpful to, even though they weren't FedSoc and didn't get an A in his class. Does not, however, make phone calls (to the best of my knowledge; I might very well be wrong).

How do I get a clerkship with Bibas? I just take his classes (signed up for his fall PR class) and approach him or he approaches me? What grades are needed? how about Scirica?

Look at who he's hired over the past several years from here. They're FedSoc summas/magnas, and he generally hires early, during 1L. I do know of upperclassmen who've gotten interviews with him, but they were for later terms.

Fair warning that his PR curve is brutal, unlike other PR courses at Penn where everyone gets an A. A couple of years ago the class had like ten people in it and he only gave out one A. Last year was two or three As, I believe, but the class was a bit bigger.

Any tips for the new 1Ls?
...
-Don’t join a journal if you want to be corporate and do not join ALR 1L year.

I disagree with this if the journal in question is Law Review. The workload isn't much. Here's the big secret they don't tell you: Law Review is less work than the other journals because they're never understaffed. The people who bitch about LR workload are just lazy. Assignments take two three hours at best to do well, and if you phone it in, much less than that.

The benefits more than make up for it, whether those be career-wise (definite plus for me during OCI even though I was 100% corp), prestige, outline bank, use of the office (severely underrated imo), parties/retreats, so on and so forth.

I think there's still value in the secondaries—especially if you play your cards right; not very hard to be EIC of one of those, they practically need to beg people—but if you're doubling down on corporate I understand declining membership if you don't make Law Review.

Try to knock off the pro bono requirement ASAP. It’s kind of stupid because who wants someone for 35 hours? Just get it done, makes no sense but we have to do it.

Protip: one unit from an externship, internship, or clinic can be exchanged for 35 pro bono hours. You can do this for each externship/internship/clinic you complete. In other words, you can graduate from the Law School having never completed a single hour of pro bono.

If your externship or clinic was pass/fail, it's a no-brainer (especially since pass/fail units are bad in the grand scheme of things). If you got a letter grade—which should've been an A—up to you whether it's worth losing it from your GPA calculation.

And the curve is apparently brutal haha

Wait seriously???

I heard all B’s!!! Ruthless

Bullshit. I know of at least one A- in last semester's class.

Ridiculous to suggest that LR is less work or the same compared to other journals, if only because there are more edits and you can’t quit for 3L year. Anyone with a friend on LR (everyone) can use the outline bank and the office.

It is less work. I only ever had 40ish footnotes while my friends on secondaries regularly got 70-80. Granted, there are a couple more assignments over the course of the year, but it's still very manageable. The only respect in which LR is "more work" is the writing requirement, but all you have to do is take a paper class and you're done (and you get senior writing too).

On not being able to quit as a 3L: so what? 3L editors don't do a damn thing. They have one assignment over the summer that everyone half-asses and that's the end of that. It's a joke.

“Law review is less work” is certainly a take…

All journals are a complete waste of time. Get great grades and do something valuable instead. You don’t need a journal for anything anymore.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard about Bibas and his willingness to help students who did well in his class but aren't clerking for him? Are his LoR strong and does he make calls?

Bibas is very willing to help people out, assuming he likes you. I know of multiple people he's been helpful to, even though they weren't FedSoc and didn't get an A in his class. Does not, however, make phone calls (to the best of my knowledge; I might very well be wrong).

How do I get a clerkship with Bibas? I just take his classes (signed up for his fall PR class) and approach him or he approaches me? What grades are needed? how about Scirica?

Look at who he's hired over the past several years from here. They're FedSoc summas/magnas, and he generally hires early, during 1L. I do know of upperclassmen who've gotten interviews with him, but they were for later terms.

Fair warning that his PR curve is brutal, unlike other PR courses at Penn where everyone gets an A. A couple of years ago the class had like ten people in it and he only gave out one A. Last year was two or three As, I believe, but the class was a bit bigger.

Any tips for the new 1Ls?
...
-Don’t join a journal if you want to be corporate and do not join ALR 1L year.

I disagree with this if the journal in question is Law Review. The workload isn't much. Here's the big secret they don't tell you: Law Review is less work than the other journals because they're never understaffed. The people who bitch about LR workload are just lazy. Assignments take two three hours at best to do well, and if you phone it in, much less than that.

The benefits more than make up for it, whether those be career-wise (definite plus for me during OCI even though I was 100% corp), prestige, outline bank, use of the office (severely underrated imo), parties/retreats, so on and so forth.

I think there's still value in the secondaries—especially if you play your cards right; not very hard to be EIC of one of those, they practically need to beg people—but if you're doubling down on corporate I understand declining membership if you don't make Law Review.

Try to knock off the pro bono requirement ASAP. It’s kind of stupid because who wants someone for 35 hours? Just get it done, makes no sense but we have to do it.

Protip: one unit from an externship, internship, or clinic can be exchanged for 35 pro bono hours. You can do this for each externship/internship/clinic you complete. In other words, you can graduate from the Law School having never completed a single hour of pro bono.

If your externship or clinic was pass/fail, it's a no-brainer (especially since pass/fail units are bad in the grand scheme of things). If you got a letter grade—which should've been an A—up to you whether it's worth losing it from your GPA calculation.

Wait seriously???

I heard all B’s!!! Ruthless

Bullshit. I know of at least one A- in last semester's class.

Ridiculous to suggest that LR is less work or the same compared to other journals, if only because there are more edits and you can’t quit for 3L year. Anyone with a friend on LR (everyone) can use the outline bank and the office.

It is less work. I only ever had 40ish footnotes while my friends on secondaries regularly got 70-80. Granted, there are a couple more assignments over the course of the year, but it's still very manageable. The only respect in which LR is "more work" is the writing requirement, but all you have to do is take a paper class and you're done (and you get senior writing too).

On not being able to quit as a 3L: so what? 3L editors don't do a damn thing. They have one assignment over the summer that everyone half-asses and that's the end of that. It's a joke.

“Law review is less work” is certainly a take…

All journals are a complete waste of time. Get great grades and do something valuable instead. You don’t need a journal for anything anymore.

Better office and fancy events. All journal work is marginal. Just get it done. If it’s too challenging, likely don’t have what it takes to succeed in classes etc

[Anonymous User]

Now that the dust has mostly cleared, will we get an updated spreadsheet? Curious how the lottery played out

[Anonymous User]

Now that the dust has mostly cleared, will we get an updated spreadsheet? Curious how the lottery played out

Lottery? Someone’s bitter.

[Anonymous User]

Did Kate Shaw join the faculty in the end?

[Anonymous User]

Is the school going to hire a replacement for Chris? Heard she's now only part time.

[Anonymous User]

Now that the dust has mostly cleared, will we get an updated spreadsheet? Curious how the lottery played out

Lottery? Someone’s bitter.

Far from bitter. Was a beneficiary of the clearly luck-based system.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard about Bibas and his willingness to help students who did well in his class but aren't clerking for him? Are his LoR strong and does he make calls?

Bibas is very willing to help people out, assuming he likes you. I know of multiple people he's been helpful to, even though they weren't FedSoc and didn't get an A in his class. Does not, however, make phone calls (to the best of my knowledge; I might very well be wrong).

How do I get a clerkship with Bibas? I just take his classes (signed up for his fall PR class) and approach him or he approaches me? What grades are needed? how about Scirica?

Look at who he's hired over the past several years from here. They're FedSoc summas/magnas, and he generally hires early, during 1L. I do know of upperclassmen who've gotten interviews with him, but they were for later terms.

Fair warning that his PR curve is brutal, unlike other PR courses at Penn where everyone gets an A. A couple of years ago the class had like ten people in it and he only gave out one A. Last year was two or three As, I believe, but the class was a bit bigger.

Any tips for the new 1Ls?
...
-Don’t join a journal if you want to be corporate and do not join ALR 1L year.

I disagree with this if the journal in question is Law Review. The workload isn't much. Here's the big secret they don't tell you: Law Review is less work than the other journals because they're never understaffed. The people who bitch about LR workload are just lazy. Assignments take two three hours at best to do well, and if you phone it in, much less than that.

The benefits more than make up for it, whether those be career-wise (definite plus for me during OCI even though I was 100% corp), prestige, outline bank, use of the office (severely underrated imo), parties/retreats, so on and so forth.

I think there's still value in the secondaries—especially if you play your cards right; not very hard to be EIC of one of those, they practically need to beg people—but if you're doubling down on corporate I understand declining membership if you don't make Law Review.

Try to knock off the pro bono requirement ASAP. It’s kind of stupid because who wants someone for 35 hours? Just get it done, makes no sense but we have to do it.

Protip: one unit from an externship, internship, or clinic can be exchanged for 35 pro bono hours. You can do this for each externship/internship/clinic you complete. In other words, you can graduate from the Law School having never completed a single hour of pro bono.

If your externship or clinic was pass/fail, it's a no-brainer (especially since pass/fail units are bad in the grand scheme of things). If you got a letter grade—which should've been an A—up to you whether it's worth losing it from your GPA calculation.

I heard all B’s!!! Ruthless

Bullshit. I know of at least one A- in last semester's class.

Ridiculous to suggest that LR is less work or the same compared to other journals, if only because there are more edits and you can’t quit for 3L year. Anyone with a friend on LR (everyone) can use the outline bank and the office.

It is less work. I only ever had 40ish footnotes while my friends on secondaries regularly got 70-80. Granted, there are a couple more assignments over the course of the year, but it's still very manageable. The only respect in which LR is "more work" is the writing requirement, but all you have to do is take a paper class and you're done (and you get senior writing too).

On not being able to quit as a 3L: so what? 3L editors don't do a damn thing. They have one assignment over the summer that everyone half-asses and that's the end of that. It's a joke.

“Law review is less work” is certainly a take…

All journals are a complete waste of time. Get great grades and do something valuable instead. You don’t need a journal for anything anymore.

Better office and fancy events. All journal work is marginal. Just get it done. If it’s too challenging, likely don’t have what it takes to succeed in classes etc

I don’t think you get it. It’s obviously not too challenging to do journal work and get good grades. It’s meaningless and useless work and there is an opportunity cost to doing it. For example, my one co-clerk who was towards the top of her class chose not to do a journal but instead argued three appeals as part of an externship volunteer program. Do something like that instead. Judges and employers might actually be impressed and your work has a real impact. But hey, if you want to spend time cite checking garbage drivel go ahead. At least you get to spend time in that sweet office.

[Anonymous User]

Is the school going to hire a replacement for Chris? Heard she's now only part time.

Surprised anyone in OCS is classified as more than part time!

[Anonymous User]

Now that the dust has mostly cleared, will we get an updated spreadsheet? Curious how the lottery played out

Stop worrying about other people. This school is full of busybodies.

[Anonymous User]

Bibas is very willing to help people out, assuming he likes you. I know of multiple people he's been helpful to, even though they weren't FedSoc and didn't get an A in his class. Does not, however, make phone calls (to the best of my knowledge; I might very well be wrong).



Look at who he's hired over the past several years from here. They're FedSoc summas/magnas, and he generally hires early, during 1L. I do know of upperclassmen who've gotten interviews with him, but they were for later terms.

Fair warning that his PR curve is brutal, unlike other PR courses at Penn where everyone gets an A. A couple of years ago the class had like ten people in it and he only gave out one A. Last year was two or three As, I believe, but the class was a bit bigger.




I disagree with this if the journal in question is Law Review. The workload isn't much. Here's the big secret they don't tell you: Law Review is less work than the other journals because they're never understaffed. The people who bitch about LR workload are just lazy. Assignments take two three hours at best to do well, and if you phone it in, much less than that.

The benefits more than make up for it, whether those be career-wise (definite plus for me during OCI even though I was 100% corp), prestige, outline bank, use of the office (severely underrated imo), parties/retreats, so on and so forth.

I think there's still value in the secondaries—especially if you play your cards right; not very hard to be EIC of one of those, they practically need to beg people—but if you're doubling down on corporate I understand declining membership if you don't make Law Review.



Protip: one unit from an externship, internship, or clinic can be exchanged for 35 pro bono hours. You can do this for each externship/internship/clinic you complete. In other words, you can graduate from the Law School having never completed a single hour of pro bono.

If your externship or clinic was pass/fail, it's a no-brainer (especially since pass/fail units are bad in the grand scheme of things). If you got a letter grade—which should've been an A—up to you whether it's worth losing it from your GPA calculation.



Bullshit. I know of at least one A- in last semester's class.

Ridiculous to suggest that LR is less work or the same compared to other journals, if only because there are more edits and you can’t quit for 3L year. Anyone with a friend on LR (everyone) can use the outline bank and the office.

It is less work. I only ever had 40ish footnotes while my friends on secondaries regularly got 70-80. Granted, there are a couple more assignments over the course of the year, but it's still very manageable. The only respect in which LR is "more work" is the writing requirement, but all you have to do is take a paper class and you're done (and you get senior writing too).

On not being able to quit as a 3L: so what? 3L editors don't do a damn thing. They have one assignment over the summer that everyone half-asses and that's the end of that. It's a joke.

“Law review is less work” is certainly a take…

All journals are a complete waste of time. Get great grades and do something valuable instead. You don’t need a journal for anything anymore.

Better office and fancy events. All journal work is marginal. Just get it done. If it’s too challenging, likely don’t have what it takes to succeed in classes etc

I don’t think you get it. It’s obviously not too challenging to do journal work and get good grades. It’s meaningless and useless work and there is an opportunity cost to doing it. For example, my one co-clerk who was towards the top of her class chose not to do a journal but instead argued three appeals as part of an externship volunteer program. Do something like that instead. Judges and employers might actually be impressed and your work has a real impact. But hey, if you want to spend time cite checking garbage drivel go ahead. At least you get to spend time in that sweet office.

Do both. For 99% of people, the opportunity cost is that they can’t watch Netflix. You have plenty of time

[Anonymous User]

Very nice day one video from the new Dean but how about some concrete plans to help boost clerkship numbers?

[Anonymous User]

Now that the dust has mostly cleared, will we get an updated spreadsheet? Curious how the lottery played out

If you really want to know about other students’ interviews and results you can look at the interview evaluations.

[Anonymous User]

Any tips for the new 1Ls?

I’ll start:
-Phone in LPS, no one cares if you get Honors, focus on your real classes instead
-Do not trust OCS for anything. Apply on your own and don’t listen to their silly rules
-Make friends and be nice to everyone
-Don’t take intense electives in 1L spring like Property and especially Admin, wait til you have your job
-Don’t join a journal if you want to be corporate and do not join ALR 1L year.

Agree on the first three. But admin with Lee is not that hard if you know how to use an outline on a 24 hour exam, and it’s easier to beat the curve in a harder class whereas classes like repro are harder to work your way to an A. I got an A in admin without doing any of the reading because there’s so many excellent outlines and you have time to look up anything you don’t know during the exam. Admin is easier if you follow news around government and politics.

I’ll add that you DO need to study for the bluebooking competition if you want to get on law review, and you either need to dedicate most of the entire period between your last exam and the bluebooking test to studying or you need to study before 1L spring finals.

Really can’t stress enough that OCS is unbelievably incompetent.

Low key journals really don’t take up much time as a 2L and you can quit before 3L, but do NOT do multiple journals. It’s ridiculous that people do that here.

Lee is Dean now and not teaching admin in the spring.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard about Bibas and his willingness to help students who did well in his class but aren't clerking for him? Are his LoR strong and does he make calls?

He doesn't like writing letters to circuit, but will for district. He's more up for calling.

[Anonymous User]

Why are so many corporate do-or-die in the clerkship thread? it doesn't provide any benefit to you

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard about Bibas and his willingness to help students who did well in his class but aren't clerking for him? Are his LoR strong and does he make calls?

He doesn't like writing letters to circuit, but will for district. He's more up for calling.

Thank you. Do you have insight on why he'd be ok with district but not COA? Also, correct me if i'm wrong, but don't most professors prefer writing letters over making calls since making calls is considered more personal?