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District Court clerkship for less than a year (~9 months)?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 5:50 pm
by Anonymous User
Would clerking for a judge for 9 months be worth it? The clerkship is apparently renewable, so I may get the chance to extend it. FWIW, I would have a little over one year of experience in biglaw before starting. I'm doing mostly IP litigation in a big city, but the clerkship would be in a secondary city (and likely wouldn't include a lot of IP cases). I've wanted to clerk for a while because I've thought about applying for BIGFED jobs and I think the experience would be interesting and a nice break from biglaw.
Re: District Court clerkship for less than a year (~9 months)?
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 6:32 pm
by Anonymous User
I had a DCt co-clerk who was a similar situation - she clerked for ~ 7 months because the judge had an unexpected opening. It was not renewable because the judge had already hired his clerks for the following term. She was in BigLaw/IP litigation in the same (IP-heavy) district as we clerked, and she returned to the same firm afterwards. Within those parameters, she found it to be a great experience. She enjoyed the change of pace from BigLaw, and she got lots of transferable experience that her firm appreciated when she returned. And while it was not a full term clerkship, I think she's been treated more or less like any other district court clerk, by her employer and others. Since her entire clerkship happened in one calendar year, she does not list the year of the clerkship on her firm bio (since it would just be 20XX, not 20XX-20XX+1).
Re: District Court clerkship for less than a year (~9 months)?
Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2013 4:20 pm
by ClerkAdvisor
Anonymous User wrote:I had a DCt co-clerk who was a similar situation - she clerked for ~ 7 months because the judge had an unexpected opening. It was not renewable because the judge had already hired his clerks for the following term. She was in BigLaw/IP litigation in the same (IP-heavy) district as we clerked, and she returned to the same firm afterwards. Within those parameters, she found it to be a great experience. She enjoyed the change of pace from BigLaw, and she got lots of transferable experience that her firm appreciated when she returned. And while it was not a full term clerkship, I think she's been treated more or less like any other district court clerk, by her employer and others. Since her entire clerkship happened in one calendar year, she does not list the year of the clerkship on her firm bio (since it would just be 20XX, not 20XX-20XX+1).
That's a bit of an odd reason to not list a clerkship. I know of several judges who do January - December clerkships.