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What's the Latest News in Law Clerk Hiring?

Some S.D.N.Y. judges have made a sensible tweak to (what remains of) the Law Clerk Hiring Plan.

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Last month, the powers-that-be behind OSCAR (the Online System for Clerkship Application and Review) made some changes to the remnants of the Law Clerk Hiring Plan (to the extent that folks still follow the Plan). The upshot: OSCAR will release the electronic clerkship applications of rising 3Ls on June 28, 2013, at 12:00 p.m. (ET). At that point, judges are free to schedule and conduct interviews and make clerkship offers.

In writing about this news, I questioned the wisdom of this approach: “The Plan provides for ‘a single date to receive applications, schedule and conduct interviews, and make clerkship offers.’ This could be a recipe for an utterly shambolic process, a mad scramble for talent on June 28, full of hastily conducted interviews, exploding offers, and questionable behavior by both judges and applicants.”

Well, it seems that some judges agree with this analysis and are taking a different tack….

Word on the street is that a number of S.D.N.Y. judges are tweaking the Plan a bit. They will accept applications from rising 3Ls anytime (read: now), but won’t conduct interviews or make offers until June 28. Based on law clerk hiring procedures posted on the web, it seems the group includes Judge Jesse Furman and Judge Alison Nathan (click on each judge’s name to see their hiring guidelines).

This approach strikes me as eminently sensible. It saves judges and their clerks from the lunacy of trying to review hundreds (or even thousands) of clerkship applications, as fast as possible, on June 28. It saves applicants from uncertainty about where they should be on June 28, as well as eleventh-hour travel costs.

Sure, there will still be some chaos surrounding the 28th, including jockeying for the earliest interview times. But that doesn’t seem terribly different from the old Law Clerk Hiring Plan.

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What are you hearing about law clerk hiring these days? Feel free to email us or text us (646-820-8477) with the latest intelligence.

P.S. It has been a while since our last Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch story. This morning, during today’s SCOTUSblog liveblog, we learned that Justice Ginsburg has completed her law clerk hiring for October Term 2014. So please stop holding out on us and email us, subject line “SCOTUS clerk hiring,” with the most recent hiring info. Thanks.

Earlier: Clerkship Hiring Is Getting Earlier and Earlier

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