Clerks II
This 1L (who is interested in clerking later) does not know what to make of DE's closing remark in this morning's email:
"There is a popular misconception that we don't do as well as our peers in obtaining clerkships. In fact, we are competitive with our peers on this front. According to the 2006 numbers (the most recent year for which we have hard data), 14% of our 2006 graduating class went directly into clerkships. That was better than Columbia (13.5%), NYU (13%), Michigan (13%), U Penn (12.7%), Northwestern (10.6%), Georgetown (10%), and Cornell (10%) (although not as good as Yale (42%), Harvard (22.6%), Stanford (25.8%), Chicago (20.7%), Duke (19%), or Virginia (16%))."Who collects and reports the numbers? Is there a distinction between the KIND of clerkship these applicants are getting? Between which applicants are being reported? All other factors being equal, if DE is correct, why the conception that Boalt is behind the curve at placing clerks? What is it based upon?
Labels: 0L/1L Advice, DE, Kevin Smith
posted by Patrick Bageant at 9:50 AM
7 Comments:
I posted this in the clerkship thread, but it bears repeating here: These stats reflect the percentage of people who are going on to clerk from each school, not how many applied vs. how many got accepted (i.e. our "success rate").
This also reflects ALL clerkships, rather than the federal appellate clerkships that are the most competitive, that those "other schools" excel at, and that set up their grads for future paths into academia and government. Talk to any faculty when they're groggy and not thinking before they speak, and they'll admit Boalt does embarrassingly bad at landing clerks on the 1, 2, 4, 5, 9, and DC Circuits compared to "our peers."
Everyone should stay positive for tomorrow. Do NOT drag this negative energy into the tournament. And I mean the Dude here.
Do any Boalties care to share where they've received "feeler" emails/calls from or if any judges have already called to schedule an interview? Don't have to be specific, just state, general region, or circuit would be helpful.
I would also point out that Boalties tend to be "quieter" about clerkships than our friends on the other coast. There is much less "X is clerking for Y, oooooh" at Boalt than at other schools. Since it isn't as much of a gossip thing, there is a perception that people aren't clerking. People are, they just don't make it as public.
This has both positives and negatives. Positively, it re-emphasizes that Boalt has less of a "bragging" culture. Negatively, it means people don't know about alums they can contact and also seems to create a downtrodden (unjustifiably so) clerkship atmosphere.
As a boalt alum, I would like to share some light on this subject. It should be noted that my comments are mainly in respose to 10:49's post.
First, there are virtually no Boalt students clerking for a non-federal judge, so Boalt's high percentage is based primarily, if not entirely, on federal clerkships. You can confirm this by visiting the career services office.
Second, in terms of the "most competitve" clerkships within the federal judiciary, it's important to remember that it's the particular judge you're clerking for, not the circuit, that prestige is primarily evaluated on. For example, I think most rationale people who actually know about judges (which likely isn't current law students), would agree that clerking for Judge Barkett on the 11th Circuit, Judge Wilkinson on the 4th, or Judge Wood on the 7th (political views not withstanding) is far more prestigous then clerking for some random judge on the 9th or 2nd who no one outside of the 9th or 2nd has ever heard of. Thus, it is not accurate to say, "hey, there are no Boalt clerks on the First Circuit, so Boalt sucks. (And by the way, the 1st, 4th, and especially the 5th, are not generally considered prestigous circuits, despite the fact that they do have a few prestigous judges on them)
Third, it's also important to remember that most Boalt people want to stay in California, which likely contributes to the fact that there aren't a large representation of Boalt clerks all over the country. This fact may also result in there being a lower number of Boalt clerks overall then there should be, as Boalties are essentially eliminating other Boalties. Like firms, Judges generally don't like to hire all their clerks from the same school.
Lastly, perhaps the most important measure of a school's success in the clerkship market is their ability to land a student on the Supreme Court. This is also an area that Boalt does fairly well (check wikipidea) given its rank (remember, Boalt is not exactly the number one school in the country). In the last three terms (includig this one), there has been at least one Boalt student clerking on the court. I think once Boalt stops placing people there, then it's time to start calling in the guards.
In closing, although I enjoyed my time at Boalt, I was always annoyed by the students who seemed to have an inferiority complex about the school. I'm not sure why that is, but some people always felt Boalt was just not good enough for anything. Generally these students were 1 or 2Ls who weren't sure about their future, or people who never went to school outside of Cali and perhaps always felt that the other side (east coast school's) were better. At any rate, no one should worry, I've haven't known too many students who didn't get the job/clerkship/teaching position they wanted (assuming they had the grades).
Amen, 9:52AM, amen.
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