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Clerkship Application Season: Open Thread
(And a tricky issue re: non-citizen law clerks.)

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Please hire us! We're Americans! Want to see our passports and birth certificates?

It’s that time of the year again: clerkship application season. Here is the requisite open thread for discussion, where you can trade news and gossip about which courts and judges are hiring, which ones are done, which clerkships are great, and which clerkships you’ll hate.

Pursuant to the 2010 Law Clerk Hiring Plan for federal judges, applications could be received last Tuesday, September 7. Today, September 13, is the first day when judges can contact applicants to schedule interviews. The calls were allowed to go out at 10 a.m. Eastern time (sorry, Californians). Interviews can be held and offers can be made starting on Thursday, September 16, at 8 a.m. Eastern time (again, our sympathies to Californians; but think of it like Christmas morning, when waking up early brings joyful news of a gift).

Word on the street is that the Plan is starting to break down, with an increasing number of judges, including some of the most prestigious and popular ones, hiring ahead of the deadlines. Getting federal judges to follow rules isn’t easy; they’re used to making the rules, not obeying them.

Furthermore, the Plan by its terms “does not cover applicants who have graduated from law school”; these applicants may be interviewed and hired by judges at any time. More and more judges are going down this path and hiring law school graduates rather than 3Ls, which (1) gives them clerks with more experience, either in practice or in another clerkship, and (2) allows the judges to avoid the mad scramble for talent under the Plan.

How competitive will the hunt for federal judicial clerkships be this year? Let’s discuss….

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(And a tricky issue re: non-citizen law clerks.)”

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Money v. Job Satisfaction: How Much Do You Need?

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Last week I had dinner with a friend who used to work at a large law firm and now has a non-legal career. I asked her what, if anything, she missed about life in Biglaw.

“Just one thing: the paycheck,” she said. “I miss being able to go crazy in the shoe department of Bloomingdale’s.”

It’s a common sentiment among people who leave jobs at large law firms (in terms of missing the paycheck; not sure about the shoes). Most people who leave large law firms, with the notable exception of finance folks, end up with lower incomes in their new lines of work. But many refugees of Biglaw report higher job satisfaction, as well as overall happiness.

An article in yesterday’s New York Times touched upon the trade-off between money and job satisfaction — and revealed a “magic number” of sorts, namely, the income level at which additional income does not bring you additional happiness….

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From Laid-Off Lawyer to… Cleaning Lady!

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A Dealbreaker reader was out and about on the Upper West Side, and something caught his eye. He moved in for a closer look, snapped a photo, and sent it to Dealbreaker. Our colleague Bess Levin has been having a grand old time ever since.

Me? I just want people to see it before they go to law school. I want people to see it before they write television shows about the lavish lifestyle of lawyers, or complain that young lawyers feel a sense of entitlement.

But mostly, I want somebody out there to get me a wide angle shot of the photo — I’m in the market for these services…

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Career Center: Taking Control of Your Career

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From time to time, we “go live” with the Career Center resources, to give you access to firsthand advice from the hiring partners and in-house counsel at major law firms and companies.  Our next opportunity for this type of professional development will be Wednesday, September 22, 2010 in Miami, Florida.

If you are in the Miami on the 22nd, need free MCLE credit, and would like some great advice on taking control of your career, read on for details….

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A New Approach to Fall Recruiting

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Back in February of this year, the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) announced a minor change to its recruiting guidelines. I was underwhelmed. New associates are graduating law school in a terrible job market, firms are sick of being forced to hire people two years before they know their staffing needs, and NALP is fiddling around with the open offer period? Make sure those deck chairs are properly arranged before we all drown!

A wise man once said: “This town needs an enema.”

Back in February I called for a complete overhaul of the fall recruiting process, and only the crickets heard me cry myself to sleep that night.

But today we’ve received word that a firm most of you have never heard of, and a school more known for its women’s basketball team than its law school, are teaming up to come up with a truly new approach to hiring law school graduates. Will it work? Will it catch on? At this point, who cares?

It’s a new idea — not some twice-baked, refried, reheated idea that wasn’t all that good the first time around….

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Post-Labor Day Report Reveals More Labor for Lawyers

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I hope all of you had a fine long weekend. I also hope at least some of you have some skills at building infrastructure.

But maybe you have some legal skills. If you do, the market for your talents is ever-so-slightly recovering. The latest jobs report shows that the American economy stinks as a whole, but less so for lawyers. Am Law Daily reports:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly employment report for August was released early Friday and the news was still a bit glum overall — the U.S. economy lost a total of 54,000 jobs. But the news for lawyers and legal industry employees was a bit brighter.

The legal sector handed out 1,000 jobs last month, marking the second straight month of improved numbers for the industry.

Yay! Let’s welcome these new people to the party…

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Cut Your Losses, or Finish Law School? An ATL Debate

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Martin Luther dropped out of law school - and so can you.

At what point should you give up on your dream of becoming a lawyer? It’s a question on many people’s minds lately. Whether they were laid off during the recession and haven’t been able to get back in, or if they’ve just graduated law school to the triumphant sounds of crickets, people are wondering when it’s time to stop throwing good money (and effort) after bad.

It’s a question some people start asking before they even graduate from law school. With the school year getting underway, returning law students are once again wondering whether or not they made the right choice when they matriculated to law school in the first place.

Earlier this week, Lat received this question from a 2L at a top-eight law school:

Hi David. I’ve got a dilemma and it’s really eating me up and I was wondering if you could give me some advice. Here are the salient points:

* I’m at [redacted] — an awesome school.
* It’s a crappy economy and I don’t anticipate getting a job anytime soon.
* My 1L grades are A-, B+, B, B, B-, B-, B-, B-.
* I’m not sure I really want to spend my life being a lawyer. It seems like such a boring profession.
* I think I would be really happy being a public interest attorney, like working at the DA’s office or on Capitol Hill. I get excited about those jobs — but they pay nothing and are super-hard to get.
* I’m about $70K in debt — so I’ve invested so much!

People tell me that a JD is a great credential to get. I just don’t know if it’s worth it to finish the degree. It’s so darn expensive. Realistically, if I stay the course I’ll graduate with $170K in debt. If I don’t finish, I’ll never have the degree and the prospects that come with it.

I feel that long-term, over a 40-year career, it could be good to have the law degree — it’s from [redacted], not from a lower-ranked school.

Should I finish law school or walk away?

Mwahahaha — David isn’t here, Mrs. Torrance.

Just kidding. Lat is here, and he will answer your question in a second. But first, let Elie explain why you should run, now…

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Career Center: A Resource for Researching Large Law Firms

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Just a reminder that the 2010 summer associate survey results have been incorporated into the Summer Associate Program sections within each of the Firm Snapshots. So be sure to visit the Career Center, where you’ll find inside information about the summer programs at all the major law firms. Here are some examples:

  • Lunches at this firm are limited to 10 “traditional” lunches budgeted at $65 each, and 20 “casual” lunches budgeted at $15 each.  But if the wining and dining, long hours, and BlackBerrys aren’t your thing, the firm gives a few summer associates the opportunity to spend an additional four to six weeks on a public service project at their full firm salary.
  • With 93% of summer associates receiving offers in 2009, no start date deferrals, a summer associate weekend retreat on Catalina Island, and a trip to Disneyland, this firm has its summer associates feeling like they’re summering at the happiest Biglaw firm on earth.
  • Unsociable types need not apply to this firm, which summer associates confirm lives up to its “very social” and “fratty” reputation.  In addition to a full calendar of after-work events, a summer associate weekend retreat is held in Beverly Hills for more socializing, schmoozing, and a bit of training.
  • Summer associates who share the same entrepreneurial spirit as this firm will thrive in the free-market assignment system, where summers are in control of their workload and who they work with, and have no qualms about needing to “reach out to attorneys for assignments, mentorship and feedback.”
  • Summer associates have to “[b]e prepared to be on top of [their] game all the time” at this firm, where social events are as equally important as work product quality.

For information on summer programs and associate life at all the top firms, visit the Career Center.

The World Hates Lawyers: Mainstream Media Manages to Criticize Biglaw Summers AND Public Sector Lawyers in the Same Breath

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Earlier this week, Conor Friedersdorf, writing for The Atlantic, poured a big bottle of haterade all over the legal profession. More specifically, he criticized the way “Ivy League” lawyers are recruited, and the “palpable sense of entitlement” they exhibit even when they don’t take Biglaw bucks and instead work for the government. Here’s the set up:

The details of how elite law and business consulting firms recruit astonish me every time I hear them. Even getting an interview often requires attending an Ivy League professional school or a very few top tier equivalents. Folks who succeed in that round are invited to spend a summer working at the firm, the most sane aspect of the process.

But subsequently, they participate in sell events where they’re plied with food and alcohol in the most lavish settings imaginable: five star resort hotels, fine cigar bars, the priciest restaurants.

And here’s the money shot, one that is careening around the legal blogosphere like Billy Joel trying to get back from the Hamptons before the hurricane hits:

Though it isn’t defensible, it is unsurprising that a lot of people who eschew offers to work at these firms, favoring public sector work instead, imagine that they are making an enormous personal sacrifice by taking government work. The palpable sense of entitlement some of these public sector folks exude is owed partly to how few of “our best and brightest” do eschew the big firm route (due partly to increasing debt levels among today’s graduates, no doubt).

Really? You want to do this now? You want to talk smack about the people on the bottom rung of this totem pole, while willfully ignoring the clients, partners, law schools, and state governments that generate huge sums of wealth off the backs of the palpably entitled?

Fine. Let me take off my glasses, and we’ll step outside…

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Welcome 1Ls: You Decided to go to Law School, Now What?

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The class of 2013 probably won’t return to Above the Law in full force until after Labor Day. But a couple of comments on last night’s LeBron James post alerted us to the fact that some of the new 1Ls are here with us now:

Maybe I’m missing something, but on what basis does the court in Washington, DC exercise jurisdiction over Gloria and LeBron? Shouldn’t their lawyers raise this issue before trying to dismiss the suit as meritless?

An ATL veteran provided the credited response:

Glad to see we have newly-minted 1Ls again. Now sit on my [manly man part] while I rub your international shoe.

Yep, it’s back-to-school time. Now that thousands of 1Ls have committed to going to law school, the question arises: What should these people do to get the most out of their legal education?

We’ve got theories, the legal blogosphere has theories, and we’re sure ATL commenters have theories. Let’s help these 1Ls get prepared for what they’ve gotten themselves into…

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