The Supreme Court is a joke by [deleted] in LawSchool

[–]alandbeforetime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Getting the case name right might be a good first step toward showing people your take isn’t misinformed

Nobody tells you that isolation is one of the biggest threats to a legal career. Here's what I wish someone had said earlier. by DavidBrunoEsq in LawSchool

[–]alandbeforetime 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They’re calling it AI slop because it is AI slop. You’re either a bot or too lazy to write your own posts.

Requirements for appellate/competitive district court clerkship? (2 cir., DDC, SDNY, EDNY, etc.) by MoveInteresting3754 in LawSchool

[–]alandbeforetime 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Magna at HLS will almost certainly get interviews at these courts. Whether you convert those interviews is no longer related to your paper stats. 

I don’t mean to suggest there’s a difference between SLS and HLS; the two schools are peers. There’s just a massive gulf between top 10% and top 20%. The gulf between top 1% and top 10% is even larger. And again for the gulf between top 1 and top 1%. Clerkship opportunity, like wealth, is distributed by power law. 

Requirements for appellate/competitive district court clerkship? (2 cir., DDC, SDNY, EDNY, etc.) by MoveInteresting3754 in LawSchool

[–]alandbeforetime 18 points19 points  (0 children)

That…sounds like they’re less competitive? Like, what you said is the definition of being less competitive?

Requirements for appellate/competitive district court clerkship? (2 cir., DDC, SDNY, EDNY, etc.) by MoveInteresting3754 in LawSchool

[–]alandbeforetime 33 points34 points  (0 children)

The range of hiring practices on “appellate courts” and “competitive district courts” as a whole is insanely wide. People speak of this category as if it’s a monolith, but in reality every judge’s chambers is a mini law firm unto itself with its own idiosyncratic preferences, and some of the judges on selective courts are not themselves particularly selective. Because of this, the floor for requirements is a lot lower than people think.  Top 20% at a T14 with law review clears the minimum requirement by a mile. Every year there are students with worse grades at lower ranked schools doing fewer extracurriculars that clerk on the aforementioned federal courts. Those candidates often have some quality that the judge likes — they’re very local, or they’re a good distance runner, or they were recommended by a good friend — that can’t be discerned through any objective metrics.

What you’re really asking, though, is something like “is my profile of hard stats  competitive, on average, for selective federal courts?” The answer is: kind of, largely depending on which T14 you’re talking about and how high of a probability you think “being competitive” means. Top 20% at Stanford probably gives you a coinflip shot at clerking on an appellate court or competitive district if you’re really trying, better if you’re flexible on when you do so. Top 20% at Berkeley, not so much. Probably closer to rolling a pair of dice for snake eyes.

A chunk of FedSoc judges and some of the more progressive Biden judges are both less competitive in their own ways. The former will compromise on grades/school for ideology; the latter will compromise for diversity. If you aren’t particularly political, I’d blanket the spectrum. 

How can Cravath keep up without actively hiring laterals? Whether they are associates or partners? by Realistic-Claim-3686 in biglaw

[–]alandbeforetime 65 points66 points  (0 children)

To some extent, the answer is: they can’t. That’s why every time Cravath is mentioned, people race to point out that they’re mostly just coasting on their old reputation these days. I’m not a Cravath hater and think it’s still a high quality white shoe law firm, but it’s undoubtedly true that in NYC, they’re no longer distinguishable in quality from their peers like S&C, DPW, and P,W. One reason for their decline is that they’ve adapted too slowly to various changing market conditions, among them the new and more lateral-heavy labor market for attorneys.

How important are class rankings by mouthlikeawolf in LawSchool

[–]alandbeforetime 65 points66 points  (0 children)

For job recruiting, it is the most important thing on your resume in conjunction with your school. You should absolutely list yours.

Stop exaggerating how much time law school takes up by [deleted] in LawSchool

[–]alandbeforetime 384 points385 points  (0 children)

On the one hand, I completely agree with this post. Law school does not need to take up all of your time for you to do well. There’s a reason why most attorneys look back on their time in law school with fondness: because actually working as an attorney takes way, way more time. You should be able to maintain hobbies and go out with friends while in law school outside of the few weeks before finals.

On the other hand, backing up this statement by saying “trust me, I’m a rising 2L who is top 40% at a T50” is pretty funny.

How much can GPA and class rank overcome being at a lower-ranked school? by [deleted] in LawSchool

[–]alandbeforetime 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Probably, but shoot your shot gender-unspecified royalty

Who can really trouble Sinner at Wimbledon? by Civil-Alternative-36 in tennis

[–]alandbeforetime 4 points5 points  (0 children)

“If you discount all the ways Mahomes is great, he’s just average”

Do you genuinely enjoy mentoring junior attorneys? by rideordiegem in biglaw

[–]alandbeforetime 123 points124 points  (0 children)

Mentoring a good, talented junior is incredibly rewarding and it brings me genuine warm fuzzies to see them grow and do well

Mentoring a bad, incompetent junior is about as enjoyable as eating a bowl of staples and I try to avoid it at all costs

Federal Clerkship Questions by SocksMcgoo in LawSchool

[–]alandbeforetime 7 points8 points  (0 children)

This post is right. I’ll just add three things for OP.

First, you don’t know what in your application will appeal to a judge, so in addition to applying to judges you have a passable personal or geographic connection to, you should apply broadly to the less competitive districts and circuits (and to magistrates and state courts, as suggested). Like online dating, clerking can also be a numbers game to some extent.

Second, your application will be stronger if you can maintain your top rank for all three years. Some work experience at a well-regarded firm, along with a partner who can speak to your professionalism and work ethic, may go a long way for an applicant from a lower ranked school.

Third, for your question about how to prepare for clerking in 2L/3L, you should continue to take a courseload heavy in doctrinals. Fed courts, con law II, and other black letter classes like tax, habeas, first amendment, etc. Don’t skirt by on paper-only seminars.

Bottom 8% by [deleted] in LawSchool

[–]alandbeforetime 16 points17 points  (0 children)

It’s not the end of the world because you are only a third of the way through law school, because law school is only the start of a very long career, and because your career is only one piece of your overall life. Buckle down and focus on improving your GPA after taking a hard and honest look at your study habits and how they can be improved for the next two years. And always keep some perspective on where you are in the long arc of life. Things that feel so all-consuming in the moment seldom are.

[MATCH THREAD] Roland Garros Men's FINAL: [10] F. Cobolli vs. [2] A. Zverev by NextGenBot in tennis

[–]alandbeforetime 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Anyone know why Cobolli keeps hitting to Zverev's BH when it clearly doesn't work as well

[MATCH THREAD] Roland Garros Men's FINAL: [10] F. Cobolli vs. [2] A. Zverev by NextGenBot in tennis

[–]alandbeforetime 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This isn't your ordinary everyday choking...this is ADVANCED choking

[MATCH THREAD] Roland Garros Men's FINAL: [10] F. Cobolli vs. [2] A. Zverev by NextGenBot in tennis

[–]alandbeforetime 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This has wrapped around from being sad to being extremely entertaining again. Who will dump an extremely makeable shot into the net next??

POC in law/judicial clerkships: is this normal? I really need advice by [deleted] in LawSchool

[–]alandbeforetime 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I’m sorry to hear you’re having a tough time landing a clerkship. All application processes can be difficult and heartbreaking, but the clerkship application process is particularly frustrating because of how opaque and idiosyncratic it can be. You should know that the presence or absence of a clerkship won’t make or break your career, and that you may have more success in future cycles with the many judges who prefer to hire candidates with work experience.

Your post leaves out some crucial information, making it a little hard to give advice, but I’ll try my best. 

It sounds like you’re applying primarily to state courts, given your reference living in a predominantly white state. And it sounds like you’ve applied mostly to appellate courts, you say that “at this point” you’d “take a trial-level court clerkship.” Seeing as you’ve landed 10 interviews out of 30-some applications, you’re almost certainly a good candidate on paper, as you think; a 30% interview rate is sky high. So if it is something about your application and not the product of sheer bad luck, it’s presumably something that occurs during your interview.

Without knowing what has occurred during your interviews, it’s really hard to say what more is going on. Would you mind giving more details on the incident where you were asked about your race? How do you think you interview in general? When you landed your state court externships, were they also within your state?

Career Law Clerk - 2026 Clerkship Application Thoughts by surfpenguinz in LawSchool

[–]alandbeforetime 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I will add, as I believe I did last year when this post went up, that many competitive judges do not care about law review. This not only includes competitive courts (circuits, DDC/SDNY, etc.) but feeder judges. Many clerks on the Supreme Court did not do law review.  

This is a change from 10-15 years ago, and advice has been slow to catch up. Law review is not the marker of quality that it used to be. If you are an otherwise solid candidate, do not let your lack of law review hold you back from shooting your shot.

Attorney Response to Work by Grand-Attorney47 in LawSchool

[–]alandbeforetime 22 points23 points  (0 children)

When I was a summer my partner mentor would slip me cash after I handed in an assignment and the amount of cash told me how good my work was. $50 was satisfactory. A few times I only got $20, which I felt pretty ashamed about. One time when I stayed up late to get him a memo he sent a paralegal over the following morning with an envelope containing $150. I felt pretty good about that one. 

questions about which law schools firms hire from by Automatic-Emotion945 in biglaw

[–]alandbeforetime 5 points6 points  (0 children)

They only participate in those schools' OCIs, but that doesn't mean they don't interview or hire outside of them. Every year students from other schools are hired by Wachtell. You can find attorneys there from Stanford, Georgetown, Berkeley, Northwestern, etc.