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I've been accepted as a transfer at both...which would put me in a better position for federal clerkships?

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Securing a fed clerkship as a transfer is outrageously rare outside of HYS. Your chances are probably equally infinitesimal unless you're targeting D. S.D w/ ties or something.

The likelihood of getting a clerkship shouldn't sway your decision here. Go to Columbia, the job prospects are better across the board. The only reason for B is that you really want to be in California. But I'm not convinced that showing up at B as a transfer is going to give you enough of a connection to get a job in california at OCI.

The two schools are about the same for clerkship placement overall. If you want to clerk in one of the California district courts or the Ninth Circuit, Berkeley would be better. As another poster pointed out, however, it's pretty tough to get a clerkship as a transfer coming out of either of those schools

Berkeley has really stepped up its clerkship game in the last two years. I know a few transfer students who landed clerkships, too.

(Full disclosure: '13 grad).

"better for clerkships" is a funny question. Job markets are regional, even clerkship job markets. I strongly suspect that the reason Columbia does worse in clerkships is because its students are frequently targeting SDNY/EDNY/2d Cir, which are oversubscribed by HYSCCN as it is. Berkely, on the other hand, may be second only to SLS on the west coast in terms of connections to west coast judges (consider how many judges, district and appellate, went to Berkeley). And there are a lot of fricking judges in the 9th circuit.

So you need to ask a better question than "can I get a clerkship?" You need to ask WHERE you want to clerk, and how badly. If it's SDNY or bust for you, there's really no way in hell Berkeley beats Columbia there.

As a transfer to Berkeley who clerked on the Ninth Circuit, I can say transfers do fine with clerkship applications (a number of fellow transfers landed clerkships that I know of).

And transfers at Berkeley tend to great at OCI too (there was a thread on a Berkeley blog a few years back about Boalt 2Ls being pissed the transfers were "stealing" all of their jobs). The year I did OCI, for instance, every single summer associate from Berkeley that went to a specific V20 was a Hastings transfer. It was something like 3 or 4 summers, none of whom started at Boalt. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing is true at Colombia.

Ultimately, you should pick the place you'll be happiest living and studying for 2 years. And if you know you want to stay on the West/East Coast, that should figure pretty heavily too.