Federal Clerkship (联邦法院司法书记)

JD@UVAUID: 3503603

免责声明：再发些＂基本常识＂，害人害己。你被＂误导＂了，可别赖我。Consider yourself warned.

:lol

The path to a federal clerkship

http://abovethelaw.com/career-fi ... judicial-clerkship/

If you start thinking about the clerkship application process early in your law school career, you can make choices that help to shape your future path while also benefitting your law school experience:

• Make an effort to know faculty well. This can be accomplished most effectively by taking smaller seminar classes; writing papers, memos, and briefs; and serving as a research assistant. In this way, your professors will become familiar with your research and writing skills, while you are also producing a potential writing sample. If possible, select courses particularly useful for a clerkship like federal jurisdiction, evidence, and civil/criminal procedure. As the clerkship deadlines continue to move even earlier, you can include a list of these courses in your application as your anticipated “future coursework.”

• Try to work on a law journal or Moot Court. In addition to (and arguably more important than) prestige, these types of activities are most appropriate for a clerkship. Judges like to see that you have performed writing and editing functions as well as leadership roles in the editorial process of bringing an article to publication.

• Consider a judicial externship/internship. Interning in a judge’s chambers during a semester or the summer can open the doors to the judiciary in several ways. You gain valuable behind-the-scenes experience most akin to a clerkship, the judge’s name on your resume potentially to highlight in your cover letter, and a possible mentor who may offer guidance, introduce other judicial contacts, and serve as a reference.

• Be open-minded and flexible as to judges and types of courts. You may be sending out a large number of applications statistically to increase the odds of success but it is not enough or even possible to blanket the judiciary. Make those applications count most by spreading them as broadly geographically as you are able (i.e., not just to the most competitive circuits and courts) and, if possible, to less competitive courts and judges, as match your interests and career goals. For example, consider Magistrate judges, Bankruptcy judges, Tax Court, the U.S. Court of International Trade, prominent specialty courts such as the Delaware Court of Chancery, and state courts for those states where you would like to practice law in the future.

• Do your research diligently. This factor can never be overstated! Investigate early and through a variety of sources, both written and oral (including professors and former—but not current—law clerks). Whenever possible, go to events that help you learn more about the courts and give you an opportunity to mingle with members of the judiciary.

• Continue to try, try again. If you are initially unsuccessful, rest assured that just as the starting gate has been shifting forward, there is also no set ending date for your clerkship applications. Use your time wisely by reevaluating the elements of your application and process so far. Consider other less competitive courts and types of clerkships, expand your list by researching newly confirmed judges and keeping alert to new openings and law clerk vacancies. Remember that you can apply in waves under their different timing deadlines and even after law school. You can continue to strengthen your application in other ways such as improving your academic record, getting involved in a journal, pursuing a judicial externship/internship, or gaining other work experience.

Top 10 schools  producing federal clerkships

A 2014 post about Federal Clerkships

Morse used the employment data from the class of 2011 — the same data that was used when compiling the 2014 U.S. News law school rankings. Outcomes from the class of 2012 may have been different, and if you’re interested, you can check out the newest data here and do the math yourself (no, silly, you don’t want me — someone who thought taking on six figures of law school debt was a good decision — to be doing mathematical calculations for you).

Morse drew up a list of the top 15 law schools that had the highest clerkship placements, but we’re going to be even more choosy and show you only the top 10 schools that’ll give you the best odds of landing the one of these lauded positions. If you’d like, you can check out the full list here, as well as a ranking of top schools for state and local clerkships.

Without further ado, here are the schools that had the most federal judicial clerkship placements for the class of 2011:



[Comment]: At least six schools other than YHS sent more than 10% of their JD graduates to federal clerkships in 2011.

An obvious point to make here is that these rankings don’t seem to distinguish between prestige of clerkship. Were these feeder judges or non-feeder judges, circuit courts or district courts, Article III courts or non-Article III courts? In the land of law, these things are very important. Considering how coveted clerkships are and how closely we hold U.S. News rankings to our hearts, this is information we’d love to see.

Getting back to the list, it’s no surprise that Yale, Stanford, and Harvard came out on top here (in fact, they basically mimic the U.S. News law school rankings), but all hell seems to break loose thereafter. Chicago didn’t crack the top 10, and Columbia didn’t make the top 15. Perhaps Columbia’s clerkship advisory program could use some improvements. We — and most importantly, your graduates — certainly expect more from you than this poor showing.

We see that Chicago is hedged in 13th place between Notre Dame (U.S. News #23), Washington & Lee (U.S. News #26), Alabama (U.S. News #21), and William & Mary (U.S. News #33). Clean up your game, Chicago! As for the T14 law schools that didn’t make the list aside from Columbia — Northwestern, Cornell, and Georgetown — how embarrassing for you. Maybe this is why GULC decided to abandon the law clerk hiring plan — to get a leg up on clerkship placement in the future.

Demography of federal clerkships :

[According to NALP] The racial and ethnic distribution of students accepting clerkships over the last five years (1994-1998), broken down by level of clerkship (federal, state, or local). The data show a trend towards a slightly decreasing percentage of white law clerks in federal courts, from 87.3% in the Class of 1994 to 85.3% in the Class of 1998, and a corresponding increase in the percentage of minority law clerks.

http://www.nalp.org/clrktb1_8#02

http://www.nalp.org/clrkfind

[According to Law360] Diversity among federal law clerks has varied little in recent years, with the large majority of appellate and district court clerks identifying themselves as white from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2010, according to statistics released Wednesday by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
The number of white clerks in the appellate courts dropped from 81.8 to 78.9 percent between fiscal years 2009 and 2010. Appellate court clerks who reported themselves as black remained at 2.4 percent, Hispanics jumped from 1.5 to 2 percent, and Asian-Americans dropped from 6.7 to 6.2 percent during those years, according to the statistics.

The numbers for district court law clerks were similar, with whites dropping from 86 to 84.1 percent between fiscal years 2009 and 2010, black clerks increasing from 3.1 percent to just 3.2 percent, Hispanics staying at 3.3 percent and Asian-Americans experiencing a slight jump from 4.5 to 4.6 percent.

The lack of diversity throughout the legal profession has not gone unnoticed by those within it, with the American Bar Association listing the enhancement of diversity as a priority in its 2012 goal report.

From fiscal years 2006 to 2010, the only ethnicity to see an increase in their federal appellate clerk representation were Asian-Americans, jumping from 5.4 to 6.2 percent. Meanwhile, the number of white clerks in the appellate courts dropped from 81.7 to 78.9 percent, while the number of blacks dropped from 3.5 to 2.4 percent and Hispanics tumbled from 3.1 to 2 percent.

https://www.law360.com/articles/ ... law-clerk-diversity

vegetable03UID: 3761455

感谢楼主分享，实用

JD@UVAUID: 3503603

Here is another post about Federal Clerkship:

法学院的第一年如同置身地狱，课程紧张人人玩命，皆因毕业后能找到什么样的工作基本取决于第一年的学习成绩。Columbia、NYU 的学生为进大律师事务所拼到GPA小数点后两位数，Y、H、S 的优秀学生则眼盯着联邦上诉巡回法院法官助理（Clerk）的位置卯足全力。

为了减少竞争鼓励学生不是为高GPA而是按自己的兴趣选课，YLS在2007年率先改革评分规则，第一学期所有课程只有 Pass/Fail，之后用 Honor/Pass/Low Pass/Fail四级评分替代传统的 A-F 八级评分，不再计算 GPA。SLS和HLS 也分别在 2008和2009年采用类似的评分规则，只是名称略有不同。SLS 在Honor之上增加了一个“Book Award”，对于人数超过十五人的课，教授可以根据情况每十五人最多给一个 “Book Award”。与“Book Award”相对应的是 HLS 的 “Dean's Scholar Prize”。新评分规则保护了学习成绩较差的学生（Fail是不可能的，Low Pass基本绝迹，没有了小数点后两位数的GPA，即使大多数课程都是Pass也并不难看），但对成绩好的则不太有利，令雇主较难按成绩区分学生。尽管如此， 鉴于名气， Y、H、S 的学生找工作时依旧是“皇帝的女儿不愁嫁”， 而其它法学院则基本上维持传统评分规则，利于他们的高分学生与Y、H、S的竞争。

没了GPA，YLS和SLS不再授予毕业学生 Order of the Coif（Top 10%）或拉丁毕业荣誉，但HLS不仅保留了拉丁毕业荣誉还在变革后仅仅一年就悄悄地将Prize/Honor/Pass/Low Pass 按5/4/3/2 计分。依此计算的GPA提供给招聘单位，但却不在成绩单上列出，也不告诉学生。再次修改过的评分规则被悄悄地塞入了2010年学生手册，引发了很大争议。

法学院，尤其是著名法学院，优秀学生的理想职业之路是毕业后先做一年联邦巡回法院法官助理，极其优秀且幸运者再做一年被认为是法学院毕业生“最高荣誉”的最高法院大法官助理。之后，职业之路四通八达。若想去大律师事务所，起薪和已工作了两年的一样，另有签约奖励三十多万。几家最负盛名的律师事务所和联邦司法部的热门位置只雇用做过巡回法官助理的毕业生。

联邦巡回法院的法官每年每人最多招四位助理。全美十三个巡回法院共有一百七十九位法官，其中十来位极具声望者因每年都能把自己助理中至少一人输送到最高法院做大法官助理而被称作 “Feeder Judge”，其中最著名的几位（如 Merrick Garland，被 Obama 提名的大法官人选 ）每年可输送自己的三位甚至全部四位助理到最高法院。最高法院九位大法官（Scalia去世后暂时只有八位）每年每人招四位助理（首席大法官本可以招五位），另有三位退休大法官每人可招一位（但O'Connor 已经停招）。所以，目前最高法院只有三十四个助理位置。

1L后暑期伊始，Feeder Judge 和其他一些著名巡回法官就开始遴选两年后的助理。竞争异常激烈，通常只有著名法学院成绩拔尖者才能得到机会。法学院专门有教授负责法官助理推荐。他们首先凭成绩（外加Affirmative Action) 挑选学生，再根据可利用的关系、地域联系、甚至思想倾向等将学生推荐给合适的法官，同时兼顾学生意愿。 最优秀的学生被推荐给最著名的 Feeder Judge。法学院通常会安排合适的教授（著名、与法官相熟识等）直接打电话给法官为学生游说，而Feeder Judge 一般只考虑电话推荐的学生。法官面试除了考察学生的求知欲、专业能力和潜力、思想倾向等，更是在衡量其最终被大法官录取为助理的几率。Feeder Judge 助理的录取通常在1L暑假六月份就结束了，而大多数其他法官助理的录取可持续到一年多后。

YLS 学生第一个学期所有人都同一个Pass分数，1L后因实际上只有一个学期的成绩，高下难分。与SLS和HLS相比，YLS 学生与教授的关系和各种 connections 对拿到著名法官助理位置更为重要。SLS 每届学生约180人，分成六个班，1L结束前每班学习最优秀者被授予SLS的最高学术奖—— Kirkland 奖。院长给六名获奖学生并抄送全院教授的祝贺函中专门提醒他们将获奖放入个人简历。HLS 则在 1L和2L结束时，分别为GPA最高的两位学生颁发著名的Sears奖，毕业成绩排名前 10% 者获得 magna cum laude 荣誉。

年轻人思想一般都比较开放，大学，尤其是东西两岸的，更是自由主义者的摇篮。法学院学生中思想倾向自由化的占大多数，而法官中民主党共和党任命的约各占一半，这就使得思想倾向保守的优秀学生多了些机会，被戏称为法官助理录取过程中的 Affirmative Action。另外，HLS因为仍然计算GPA，他们的优秀学生在与YLS和SLS的竞争时有一定优势，例如Sears奖学生通常提前两年多就可以拿到最高法院大法官助理位置。大法官中Kagan和Roberts最看重学习成绩，又都毕业于HLS，Sears奖学生通常都被他们早早招到麾下。

夏日长，事亦多，法官助理申请结束后不久又迎来了八月，第二个暑假律师事务所暑期工作的申请，但能去什么样的事务所依旧要凭成绩定。

simonteacherUID: 3774508

楼主冲刺一下啊！中国人一般都当不了吧，除非有绿卡。。

JD@UVAUID: 3503603

simonteacher 发表于 2017-3-22 13:29
楼主冲刺一下啊！中国人一般都当不了吧，除非有绿卡。。

我是学渣呀，哪里敢去申请。

:L

simonteacherUID: 3774508

JD@UVA 发表于 2017-3-22 21:54
我是学渣呀，哪里敢去申请。

您一定谦虚了  那么多咨询:lol