Featured Job Survey: Clerkship Bonuses

We received about 400 responses to last week’s ATL / Lateral Link survey on judicial clerk hiring. Roughly 140 of these responses were from current judicial clerks.

Although comments in last week’s post suggest a weakening market for judicial clerk hiring, the actual survey results were mixed. A couple dozen respondents claimed that their firms were not hiring judicial clerks, but there were other respondents at almost all of these firms who said that they were hiring clerks, as well as responses from clerks stating that they had received offers from these firms. (And, in at least three cases, I’ve personally worked with clerks who received offers at the supposedly non-hiring firms.) But it does seem clear that firms are more likely to hire clerks in their larger offices, especially New York, than in smaller branches.

That said, the clerks seem to be doing pretty well overall. A quarter of responding clerks have already accepted offers for post-clerkship employment, and another fifth have received offers but haven’t yet decided where to go. Fifteen percent have started interviewing. A quarter have not yet started looking. Only about sixteen percent have started looking, but haven’t yet landed interviews.

Interestingly, 56% of the clerks who have accepted offers are going to firms that they did not work for before clerking. Almost 90% will receive clerkship bonuses, with more than half receiving $50,000.

Check out our table of clerkship bonuses, after the jump.

A number of participants were kind enough to describe their firms’ clerkship bonuses, which we merged with data from various public sources (including firm websites and Law Clerk Addict) and tips to generate the following bonus table for federal judicial clerks. (Please e-mail us with any updates or corrections, and we’ll periodically update the table.)

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Bonuses For Judicial Clerks By Firm

Firm Clerkship Bonus
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld $50K*
Arent Fox $20K
Arnold & Porter $50K
Baker Botts $35K
Ballard Spahr $10K
Bingham McCutchen $50K
Blank Rome $10K
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft $15K
Cahill Gordon & Reindel $50K
Choate, Hall $35K**
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton $50K
Cooley Godward $50K
Covington & Burling (DC) $50K
Covington & Burling (NY) $50K++
Covington & Burling (SF) $35K
Cozen O’Connor $10K
Cravath, Swaine & Moore $50K++
Crowell & Moring $25K
Davis Polk & Wardwell $50K++
Debevoise & Plimpton $50K++
Dechert $50K
Dewey & LeBoeuf $50K
DLA Piper $15K
Duane Morris $10K
Edwards Angell Palmer Dodge $35K
Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner $70K***
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson $50K
Fulbright & Jaworski $35K
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher $50K
Goodwin Procter $50K
Heller Ehrman $50K*
Hogan & Hartson $50K
Irell & Manella $50K
Jenner & Block $50K
Jones Day $50K
Katten Muchin Rosenman $15K
Kaye Scholer $50K
Kilpatrick Stockton $5K
King & Spalding $10K****
Kirkland & Ellis $50K
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel $50K
Latham & Watkins $50K++
Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw $50K
McDermott Will & Emery $50K++
McGuireWoods $20K
Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy $15K
Miller & Chevalier $10K
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius $25K
Morrison & Foerster $50K
Munger, Tolles & Olson $50K
O’Melveny & Myers $50K
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe $40K
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler $50K
Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker $50K++
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison $50K++
Perkins Coie $10K
Proskauer Rose $50K*++
Quinn Emanuel Urguhart Oliver & Hedges $50K
Reed Smith $15K
Ropes & Gray (NY) $50K++
Ropes & Gray (Outside NY) $35K++
Schulte Roth & Zabel $50K++
Shearman & Sterling $50K++
Sidley Austin $50K
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett $50K
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom $50K++
Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal $10K
Sullivan & Cromwell $50K++
Vinson & Elkins $35K
Vorys, Sater $35K
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz none
Weil, Gotshal & Manges $50K++
White & Case $50K
Williams & Connolly $45K++
Willkie Farr & Gallagher $50K
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr $50K
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati $50K
Winston & Strawn $50K

*Bonus may be lower in some offices.
**Bonus is only available to associates who previously summered at the firm.
***Bonus awarded for Federal Circuit clerkships only.
****Bonus may be higher in other cities.
++A higher bonus is available for 2-year clerks.

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