The Market for Federal Judicial Law Clerks

Abstract

In September of 1998 the Judicial Conference abandoned its most recent attempt to regulate the timing of interviews and offers in the process for hiring federal judicial law clerks. In September of 1999 most prominent law schools abandoned or cut back their attempts to regulate the time at which faculty recommendation letters could be sent. Thus, the law clerk hiring process now gets underway at the beginning of the second year of law school, roughly two years before the clerkship positions themselves would begin.