Penn Clerkship Discussion/Movement Forum

[Anonymous User]

Why would anyone want to be friends with Amy Wax, who is probably a bigger liability to Penn than the clerkship, OCS, clinic, and grading problems combined?

Liability how? Agree that she’s bad optics and unsavory, but OCS actively tanks apps by sending out the wrong materials etc

Do you have more details about the OCS sending wrong materials story?

[Anonymous User]

I think a conservative justice might still consider a not-connected-to-Scalia Penn student on JCL if they were in the top three ish people in the class and put in the work to network, and at a certain point many judges will overlook LR if you have great grades. But Law Review definitely helps, especially for liberal/moderate judges.

I can tell you that some of the conservative justices would absolutely hire someone with good but not great grades. In fact, Roberts is probably the only one who absolutely would not. But you need to have important people saying you are great. That can be people you know from family connections or it can be a feeder judge. The problem is that it’s very hard to get a feeder judge without top grades and Penn is just bad at the clerkship game.

But once you get a feeder, some of the justices almost look at law school grades like Law School Admissions offices look at the LSAT. The LSAT is a decent predictor of law school performance but no one cares about it once you can just point to the actual grades you received in law school. It’s somewhat similar with the clerkships. Great law school grades are a decent predictor of clerkship ability, but it’s better to just have a feeder judge say “hey this person is in fact an awesome clerk.”

[Anonymous User]

Any seminars to avoid or that have horrendous grading?

Reg review seminar.

Are you kidding? That class is a free three unit A that looks legit on a transcript, and can even get you a couple of small-time publications if you so choose.

[Anonymous User]

Crim Pro with Bibas, at least when he was a professor, he was solid if you were a strong applicant and busted your ass in his class. He also typically got to know people in his class even though he was super awkward. I’m not sure how he would be as a recommender now that he is on the bench.

Bibas remains incredibly helpful—even though he's on the bench now—if he likes you. This doesn't require being in FedSoc (I can think of several students who've benefitted from his help who are anything but conservative) or getting an A+ in CrimPro, but I agree it does require busting your ass in his class.

[Anonymous User]

Any seminars to avoid or that have horrendous grading?

Reg review seminar.

Are you kidding? That class is a free three unit A that looks legit on a transcript, and can even get you a couple of small-time publications if you so choose.

It used to be, but word on the street is Cary stopped giving all As and gave plenty of B range grades in fall 2022

[Anonymous User]

I think a conservative justice might still consider a not-connected-to-Scalia Penn student on JCL if they were in the top three ish people in the class and put in the work to network, and at a certain point many judges will overlook LR if you have great grades. But Law Review definitely helps, especially for liberal/moderate judges.

I can tell you that some of the conservative justices would absolutely hire someone with good but not great grades. In fact, Roberts is probably the only one who absolutely would not. But you need to have important people saying you are great. That can be people you know from family connections or it can be a feeder judge. The problem is that it’s very hard to get a feeder judge without top grades and Penn is just bad at the clerkship game.

But once you get a feeder, some of the justices almost look at law school grades like Law School Admissions offices look at the LSAT. The LSAT is a decent predictor of law school performance but no one cares about it once you can just point to the actual grades you received in law school. It’s somewhat similar with the clerkships. Great law school grades are a decent predictor of clerkship ability, but it’s better to just have a feeder judge say “hey this person is in fact an awesome clerk.”

You’re responding to a post that was part of a discussion about law review vs secondary journal

[Anonymous User]

Second the Bibas comment. Him and Struve ought to be the most sought after connections during 2L. And they’re great teachers, so it’s obviously worth taking their classes.

Regarding the SCOTUS comment - very hard to do from Penn. Even with a feeder. The FedSoc SCOTUS clerks in the last 20 years all finished #1 or had family connections.

Many others went to legit feeders and many more will in the next few years. Some of those have and had great grades. But seem to need #1 to go up.

[Anonymous User]

Second the Bibas comment. Him and Struve ought to be the most sought after connections during 2L. And they’re great teachers, so it’s obviously worth taking their classes.

Regarding the SCOTUS comment - very hard to do from Penn. Even with a feeder. The FedSoc SCOTUS clerks in the last 20 years all finished #1 or had family connections.

Many others went to legit feeders and many more will in the next few years. Some of those have and had great grades. But seem to need #1 to go up.

Maybe so, but I know multiple SCOTUS clerks from HYS who were definitely outside top 10%. But they had a feeder judge or a person directly connected to the justice going to bat for them. I realize Penn is not HYS but my point is that many conservative justices don’t care entirely about top grades and they frequently pass on students with top grades for students with very good but not tippy top grades. I do think the huge benefit for HYS fed soc students is that you can get real feeders without top grades and then the feeder can get you to scotus. I’d be interested to see how many Penn students clerked for true feeders over the past 20 years.

[Anonymous User]

Second the Bibas comment. Him and Struve ought to be the most sought after connections during 2L. And they’re great teachers, so it’s obviously worth taking their classes.

Regarding the SCOTUS comment - very hard to do from Penn. Even with a feeder. The FedSoc SCOTUS clerks in the last 20 years all finished #1 or had family connections.

Many others went to legit feeders and many more will in the next few years. Some of those have and had great grades. But seem to need #1 to go up.

Maybe so, but I know multiple SCOTUS clerks from HYS who were definitely outside top 10%. But they had a feeder judge or a person directly connected to the justice going to bat for them. I realize Penn is not HYS but my point is that many conservative justices don’t care entirely about top grades and they frequently pass on students with top grades for students with very good but not tippy top grades. I do think the huge benefit for HYS fed soc students is that you can get real feeders without top grades and then the feeder can get you to scotus. I’d be interested to see how many Penn students clerked for true feeders over the past 20 years.

The OCS spreadsheet suggests they’ve gotten Bibas, Hardiman, Newsom, Randolph, Sentelle, Oldham, and O’Scannlain in the last decade. Impressive list even if not HYSC quantity. But I take your point. Scotus is hard for anyone and the sample size is small.

[Anonymous User]

For non-penn students reading this, what are ways in which your CDO or faculty help its top students get clerkships? I have anecdotally heard of a school's CDO office lining up clerkships to their top 1L students without them needing to interview.

EDIT: Moving to different thread to keep this one Penn focused.

For Penn? Zero. Even if you’re the #1 student

It’s crazy that this is true, but I feel like part of it is just simply because Penn doesn’t have a heavy hitting faculty. They don’t proactively try to help the top students because we don’t have professors who can do much for the top students anyway. Do we even have a single professor who clerked for a current SCOTUS justice or any feeder judge? Penn’s faculty is frankly nowhere near the level of HYSC. It’s honestly not even on par with most of the T14 or other solid schools like Notre Dame, Texas, and Vanderbilt.

No. Partially because the administration hasn’t and will not hire conservatives.

Posted the quoted comment. Wasn’t complaining about conservative support. Agree re Bibas and think favorably of Wax. Was responding narrowly to the prior comment. My argument is one of basic logic:

With the current Court, the school needs to hire conservative profs if they want to have faculty who have clerked for current feeders or justices.

Penn in recent years hires faculty almost solely for diversity purposes. Not based on their scholarship, clerkships, or connections. Just look at the record. It's appalling and hurts students in so many ways. Shame on Ruger and the faculty committees who personally stunt a school that could be so much better

As someone who suffered through Professor Klick’s torts class, I’ve been hurt most by (white, straight, male, Christian) ideological diversity hires. God forbid we lose out on that law and economics research about drinking at baseball games and risky sex.

[Anonymous User]

How does one network for clerkships? Other than professors who don’t know anyone.

Network with former clerks

[Anonymous User]

For non-penn students reading this, what are ways in which your CDO or faculty help its top students get clerkships? I have anecdotally heard of a school's CDO office lining up clerkships to their top 1L students without them needing to interview.

EDIT: Moving to different thread to keep this one Penn focused.

For Penn? Zero. Even if you’re the #1 student

It’s crazy that this is true, but I feel like part of it is just simply because Penn doesn’t have a heavy hitting faculty. They don’t proactively try to help the top students because we don’t have professors who can do much for the top students anyway. Do we even have a single professor who clerked for a current SCOTUS justice or any feeder judge? Penn’s faculty is frankly nowhere near the level of HYSC. It’s honestly not even on par with most of the T14 or other solid schools like Notre Dame, Texas, and Vanderbilt.

No. Partially because the administration hasn’t and will not hire conservatives.

Posted the quoted comment. Wasn’t complaining about conservative support. Agree re Bibas and think favorably of Wax. Was responding narrowly to the prior comment. My argument is one of basic logic:

With the current Court, the school needs to hire conservative profs if they want to have faculty who have clerked for current feeders or justices.

Penn in recent years hires faculty almost solely for diversity purposes. Not based on their scholarship, clerkships, or connections. Just look at the record. It's appalling and hurts students in so many ways. Shame on Ruger and the faculty committees who personally stunt a school that could be so much better

As someone who suffered through Professor Klick’s torts class, I’ve been hurt most by (white, straight, male, Christian) ideological diversity hires. God forbid we lose out on that law and economics research about drinking at baseball games and risky sex.

Never had Klick but Law and Economics crap is not conservative at all in theory.

[Anonymous User]

Why would anyone want to be friends with Amy Wax, who is probably a bigger liability to Penn than the clerkship, OCS, clinic, and grading problems combined?

Liability how? Agree that she’s bad optics and unsavory, but OCS actively tanks apps by sending out the wrong materials etc

Do you have more details about the OCS sending wrong materials story?

It was summer 2022. OCS sent certain paper applications to the wrong judges. Not sure what other details you need. Rumor was that Struve personally apologized to those judges on behalf of Penn, can’t vouch for accuracy of that

[Anonymous User]

For Penn? Zero. Even if you’re the #1 student

It’s crazy that this is true, but I feel like part of it is just simply because Penn doesn’t have a heavy hitting faculty. They don’t proactively try to help the top students because we don’t have professors who can do much for the top students anyway. Do we even have a single professor who clerked for a current SCOTUS justice or any feeder judge? Penn’s faculty is frankly nowhere near the level of HYSC. It’s honestly not even on par with most of the T14 or other solid schools like Notre Dame, Texas, and Vanderbilt.

No. Partially because the administration hasn’t and will not hire conservatives.

Posted the quoted comment. Wasn’t complaining about conservative support. Agree re Bibas and think favorably of Wax. Was responding narrowly to the prior comment. My argument is one of basic logic:

With the current Court, the school needs to hire conservative profs if they want to have faculty who have clerked for current feeders or justices.

Penn in recent years hires faculty almost solely for diversity purposes. Not based on their scholarship, clerkships, or connections. Just look at the record. It's appalling and hurts students in so many ways. Shame on Ruger and the faculty committees who personally stunt a school that could be so much better

As someone who suffered through Professor Klick’s torts class, I’ve been hurt most by (white, straight, male, Christian) ideological diversity hires. God forbid we lose out on that law and economics research about drinking at baseball games and risky sex.

Never had Klick but Law and Economics crap is not conservative at all in theory.

What’s your preferred brand of conservative ideologue then? Klick spent plenty of time pontificating on issues related to race and gender too, if that’s what floats your boat. Straight from Scalia Law! He posts all of his evals on his page, give them a look if you want insight into what we sat through.

[Anonymous User]

What’s your preferred brand of conservative ideologue then? Klick spent plenty of time pontificating on issues related to race and gender too, if that’s what floats your boat. Straight from Scalia Law! He posts all of his evals on his page, give them a look if you want insight into what we sat through.

Absolutely loved Klick’s torts. Agree w poster who said he’s not a conservative. He’s a classical liberal. Kind man who does interesting research. If you don’t understand it, that’s on you

[Anonymous User]

What’s your preferred brand of conservative ideologue then? Klick spent plenty of time pontificating on issues related to race and gender too, if that’s what floats your boat. Straight from Scalia Law! He posts all of his evals on his page, give them a look if you want insight into what we sat through.

Absolutely loved Klick’s torts. Agree w poster who said he’s not a conservative. He’s a classical liberal. Kind man who does interesting research. If you don’t understand it, that’s on you

[Anonymous User]

What’s your preferred brand of conservative ideologue then? Klick spent plenty of time pontificating on issues related to race and gender too, if that’s what floats your boat. Straight from Scalia Law! He posts all of his evals on his page, give them a look if you want insight into what we sat through.

Absolutely loved Klick’s torts. Agree w poster who said he’s not a conservative. He’s a classical liberal. Kind man who does interesting research. If you don’t understand it, that’s on you

Jon Klick or Amy Wax? Who’d be able to tell.

Laws requiring minors to seek parental consent or to notify a parent prior to obtaining an abortion raise the cost of risky sex for teenagers. Assuming choices to engage in risky sex are made rationally, parental involvement laws should lead to less risky sex among teens, either because of a reduction of sexual activity altogether or because teens will be more fastidious in the use of birth control ex ante. Using gonorrhea rates among older women to control for unobserved heterogeneity across states, our results indicate that the enactment of parental involvement laws significantly reduces risky sexual activity among teenage girls. We estimate reductions in gonorrhea rates of 20% for Hispanics and 12% for whites. Although we find a relatively small reduction in rates for black girls, it is not statistically significant. We speculate that the racial heterogeneity has to do with differences in family structure across races.

[Anonymous User]

What’s your preferred brand of conservative ideologue then? Klick spent plenty of time pontificating on issues related to race and gender too, if that’s what floats your boat. Straight from Scalia Law! He posts all of his evals on his page, give them a look if you want insight into what we sat through.

Absolutely loved Klick’s torts. Agree w poster who said he’s not a conservative. He’s a classical liberal. Kind man who does interesting research. If you don’t understand it, that’s on you

Jon Klick or Amy Wax? Who’d be able to tell.

Laws requiring minors to seek parental consent or to notify a parent prior to obtaining an abortion raise the cost of risky sex for teenagers. Assuming choices to engage in risky sex are made rationally, parental involvement laws should lead to less risky sex among teens, either because of a reduction of sexual activity altogether or because teens will be more fastidious in the use of birth control ex ante. Using gonorrhea rates among older women to control for unobserved heterogeneity across states, our results indicate that the enactment of parental involvement laws significantly reduces risky sexual activity among teenage girls. We estimate reductions in gonorrhea rates of 20% for Hispanics and 12% for whites. Although we find a relatively small reduction in rates for black girls, it is not statistically significant. We speculate that the racial heterogeneity has to do with differences in family structure across races.

That’s an interesting result that has major policy implications. It’s also a purely descriptive claim - that’s either accurate or inaccurate. I don’t see the problem

[Anonymous User]

Why would anyone want to be friends with Amy Wax, who is probably a bigger liability to Penn than the clerkship, OCS, clinic, and grading problems combined?

Liability how? Agree that she’s bad optics and unsavory, but OCS actively tanks apps by sending out the wrong materials etc

Do you have more details about the OCS sending wrong materials story?

It was summer 2022. OCS sent certain paper applications to the wrong judges. Not sure what other details you need. Rumor was that Struve personally apologized to those judges on behalf of Penn, can’t vouch for accuracy of that

Did anyone apologize to the affected students?

[Anonymous User]

Which recent Penn faculty hires are diversity-based?

[Anonymous User]

I don't think it's an issue of faculty not being connected as much as an issue of laziness and not caring about the students.

Fairfax was KBJ's roommate, but when asked by a student for advice on getting a clerkship with her, Fairfax demurred and said she didn't want to use favors or something to that effect.

[throwawayt14]

I don't think it's an issue of faculty not being connected as much as an issue of laziness and not caring about the students.

Fairfax was KBJ's roommate, but when asked by a student for advice on getting a clerkship with her, Fairfax demurred and said she didn't want to use favors or something to that effect.

There is a possibility that was just a polite way of not wanting to make a call for that particular candidate.

[Anonymous User]

Which recent Penn faculty hires are diversity-based?

None.

[Anonymous User]

I don't think it's an issue of faculty not being connected as much as an issue of laziness and not caring about the students.

Fairfax was KBJ's roommate, but when asked by a student for advice on getting a clerkship with her, Fairfax demurred and said she didn't want to use favors or something to that effect.

There is a possibility that was just a polite way of not wanting to make a call for that particular candidate.

It sounds like this student didn’t ask in a tactful way. I’m not sure there is a tactful way to ask this one if you don’t already have other impressive clerkships/jobs lined up. Maybe that would be an appropriate question to ask about an EDPA judge. They’re personal friends, so it makes sense that she wouldn’t discuss this except with a credible candidate

[Anonymous User]

Which recent Penn faculty hires are diversity-based?

None.

I'm as opposed to DEI as the next individual, but I largely agree here. Many of the recent hires aren't just diversity hacks.