Understanding the Law Clerk Position
Beyond typically offering greater responsibility than law student internships, law clerk jobs in Washington D.C. also may provide positions that pay salaries. These positions are highly sought after by new lawyers, who are interested in getting career-critical experience and making valuable contacts. Law clerk jobs are available with firms, government entities, and judges.
Most law clerks in Washington D.C. will be doing research and writing for a few people. While there may be a Supreme Court law clerk here and there, it’s more typical for "law clerks" to be working for legal offices and for judges. Clerk jobs are often mentioned in the same breath as two other law-paying jobs: associate attorneys and legal assistants. Many new lawyers consider law clerk jobs as a means of getting a paycheck while working up the ladder.
A law clerk’s key job task is legal research. Clerks at law firms may normally investigate the laws and cases involved in particular cases, and write memos and briefs. These documents can ultimately affect how a law firm’s clients are represented in court… and that can also influence which law firm the client uses to handle their legal affairs. Research at law firms can involve taking part in trials , talking to witnesses, pleading clients’ cases before an arbitrator, interviewing opposing counsel, working on settlement strategies, and more.
Federal appellate, Supreme Court, and district courts mostly take on law clerks to research cases and write opinions. An experienced law clerk can easily fit in with these positions, which require very little legal training to begin. For these positions, law school has already prepared deserving law clerks to take on these crucial legal tasks.
Some people say that clerkships can effectively assist an applicant to "buy if not create" a great deal of prestige, both for a government position and for a judicial one. Many hiring managers in the law industry value applicants who have strong academic credentials — this helps firms and the courts to maintain their high esteem. When you hire a law clerk, you know you’re getting someone who has made it through very selective and intense interview processes, who has a top-notch education, who has written well and whom others find can be a person of good character as well.
Law Clerk Demand in DC
Washington, D.C. is a strong market for law clerks. There are federal magistrate judges, federal circuit judges, and some federal district judges. The opinion panels of the Court of Appeals are also obviously staffed by law clerks. There are many individual practitioners in the D.C. area that hire law clerks as well. There are major law firms in the area with offices in the District. Non-profit groups such as the ACLU and other advocacy organizations also have legal staff, including law clerks. Not to mention the federal agencies that employ attorneys and law clerks, some of whom will have internal law clerks.
The federal appellate court (D.C. Circuit) is in Washington, D.C. Its website has information about law clerk hiring and a link to job hiring at the federal judiciary website page. Consider subscribing to the announcement lists.
Here’s the D.C. bar professional responsibility article on law clerks, including the expectation that most employers think of law clerks as lawyers.
Law Clerk Qualifications and Skills
Law clerks in Washington, D.C. must possess at least a Juris Doctoral degree to be seriously considered for any type of legal employment. D.C. judicial law clerks perform legal research duties and may assist judges with managing their caseloads. They are advanced law students or recent graduates who have been chosen to work for a judge in order to gain practical experience in the legal field. Clerks are required to pass the bar exam in order to use their legal knowledge. The Supreme Court requires their clerks to have graduated in the top third of their classes and passed their local bar exams. Individual judges also prefer specific criteria in law clerks depending on the type of approachable nature they possess. Clerks should practice good writing and speaking skills, and must keep strong records as they report their findings directly to judges regularly.
Finding a Law Clerk Position in DC
If you are not familiar with law clerk employment, the opportunities can be found at small firms, large national firms, corporations, trade organizations, government agencies, non-profits, and legal aid and non-governmental organizations. Employment opportunities may be permanent or temporary (often for a fixed term), full-time or part-time, and can also vary according to their location in the D.C. area. A number of methods exist for locating law clerk jobs. Networking is one common approach and is strongly recommended for people seeking to practice law in Washington, D.C. Networking can be both formal ("off-line") and virtual through organizations that try to bring professionals in similar fields together for purposes of collaboration as well as peer support. These organizations may also offer job postings, and some offer public services such as mailing lists for their members. Job fairs provide another vehicle for locating legal specialized employment. Law students, who expect to be hired by a firm at a later date usually attend these events, but professional lawyers seeking employment can also participate. Some job fairs are multi-day events. Job fairs offer advantages for both the employer and the job seeker. In a short time, the employer can meet a number of job seekers and get an idea of general qualifications and experience, education, interests , and personality. The job seeker can learn more about the employer and their job openings. It is not unusual for some job seekers to wait until one of these events to distribute their resumes. These job seekers may pass out "blanks" or resumes that do not include information about their current whereabouts, their contact information, and their preferred work locations or schedule. Legal recruitment agencies who specialize in finding law clerk employment opportunities may also be useful to the job seeker. Such agencies may have access to employer postings, job fairs, recruitment activities and events and who might otherwise be required to offer their positions to their own network. Some even have on staff professionals to help job seekers prepare for interviews and to get situated in a new law clerk position. Generally, this type of agency will charge a fee for its services, which typically is paid by the employer, not the job seeker. Internet job portals are offered by a number of employers and professional organizations. Federal governmental agencies post their job vacancies on .gov websites, and some legal blogs, bar associations, and organizations will include a job portal widget on their websites. Regional bar associations may also post these positions. Likewise, some websites devoted to legal employment may include job openings for each state of the United States and some regions of the country.
Law Clerk Application Advice
The law school experience is a only two directions: onward and upward, or a left turn to nowhere. The first step is being on point with your Law Clerk applications. Within a few weeks after receiving your transcript from the Fall semester’s finals, you could find yourself with an additional arrow in your quiver, or tossing a large part of the school’s ranking into the trash. Preparation for applying for Law Clerk positions should be second nature by the time you roll into Washington, D.C. for the summer.
Resume building in law school is a five-year task. It is the only way you will truly learn about how to present your background in 500, and then subsequently, 400 words. Moreover, as time goes on, you will begin to realize that patterns emerge in the hiring process. You start to see why certain types of experience are seen as better, and begin to craft your resume around those experiences. It is likely that Law Clerk hiring will reveal patterns and guide your resume as well.
As the common adage goes "If it were easy, everyone would do it," so it goes with the cover letter. But you have to be ready to crank out a lot of them before you get one to your satisfaction. Cover letters are underappreciated but highly difficult to craft. Applicants will usually gloss over them, even proud of the "unique" elements they tried to incorporate. Law Schools usually offer examples or templates for cover letters, however, most lawyers are not admissions counselors and your cover letter is not a LOR. This means you should think carefully about the way you choose to present the material. Take time.
You may want to combine the tips discussed above when producing Law Clerk applications. It will be even more important to tailor each application when you applying to different employers. The stakes are too high for cookie-cutter applications: you want to make a positive impact on the reader, and it is unlikely that a general application intended for a vast audience will significantly impress them. Additional research will need to be conducted for each application, in order to address any issues (Law Clerk volumes, appropriation within the agency, etc.) or points of differentiation (Job responsibilities, areas of policy engagement).
Most D.C. agencies will also have their share of pitfalls associated with the application process. Those in the know will try to suggest that you figure them out through experience and luck. This is clearly not an option for those about to begin their applications. It is important to know the flow of worker/visitor submissions and what is needed from you for each process. It might be expedient to ask others who have done it first.
Career Growth and Advancement as a Law Clerk
One of the most frequent questions that new Washington, D.C. law clerks have is about career advancement. Is this a dead end job? During the job interviews that law students and experienced attorneys go through to secure law clerk positions in large D.C. law firms, the subject of career trajectory always comes up. It is an expected question and can be a point they want to stress with great pride. First, Washington, D.C., law firms have some of the highest expectations for law clerks in the country. These firms expect its law clerks to turn into full-fledged colleagues and there is a long track record of success to prove it. As part of the interview process, firms will often talk about their clerks program and how clerks are integrated into the firm’s staff and camaraderie. Firms want to refer to their success stories (which they have many), and they want their law clerk candidates to know that what happens to them after they serve their clerk terms is a matter of great pride for many D.C. law firms . Many staff members who once started off as law clerks move up into tidy office corners with partner shingle hangers on their doors. From there, the career path varies by individual and specialty. Federal clerks always have the ready advantage that their judges’ chambers colleagues use their "firm" networks regularly to hire former law clerks. The personal recommendations from a respected jurist always open doors within D.C. law firms, government agencies (including legislative committee jobs in Congress), and even other judicial chambers. Non-federal law clerks also advance into prominent positions in law firms, but they usually take a few more years since firms tend to favor recent federal judicial law clerks first and foremost until they have enjoyed the stability that many law clerks represent for hiring. Hiring decisions in large firms also emphasize that a clerking experience is a sign of caliber, temperament, and efficiency. Those three qualities are the hallmark of a successful lawyer at any size D.C. law firm.