Clerkships: How to find deadlines and decide on judges?
So as a 2L, I'm finding this whole clerkship process a little bit daunting. Particularly managing the due dates of all the different applications and navigating which judges make sense to apply to. First, does anyone have a good way to find out which judges are NOT following the federal hiring plan? I've done some looking on websites but that information seems to be really limited. I know some of the state courts have already begun accepting applications and I don't want to miss out on opportunities just because I couldn't find the deadline!
Also, how do you decide which judges to apply to? As someone with mediocre grades and no law journal, I know I'm probably no good for Court of Appeals or district courts in really popular places. But that still leaves a lot of judges left. Any ideas how to decide between those remaining?
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Deadlines and Judge picking
In my research I found that most state court judges accept applications through the summer with the goal of making their selections just before the federal hiring process begins (they want to grab candidates while they can).
As for finding federal judges who preempt the hiring plan: there are very few open violators. My experience was that judges would bend the rules upon recommendation from a person they know and trust (so, e.g. a professor of mine recommended me to a friend of his on the bench and that resulted in a June interview, similarly a family friend recommended me to another judge who met with me in July).
This brings me to the more important lesson: connections matter. A lot. When choosing judges, I would look carefully to find ones who have hired from your school in the past, and focus on those who have a clerk from your school now. I would also mine all your teachers and others for their connections (during my 2L summer I sat down with my supervisors at work and had them look at my list of judges and tell me everything they new about every name they recognized-this conversation produced a call on my behalf from a supervisor to a judge).
Good luck!!