ABA - Commission on Racial & Ethnic Diversity

The variety of positions available to law students and recent graduates of color in the courts is enormous. Graduate positions include the traditional clerkship with an individual judge, staff attorney positions with appellate and other courts, and clerkships with magistrates and local courts. In addition, positions for law students (called externships or internships), where law students act as junior clerks and earn law school academic credit, are available with many courts through the clinical programs at most law schools.

In traditional clerkships, often called Aelbow@ clerkships, the attorney is hired by and works for an individual judge. The precise kind of work these clerks perform depends upon the court and the judge's preferences. Typically a clerk who works for a trial judge will become closely involved in the actual nuts and bolts of litigation. The clerk will be asked to assist the trial judge in all facets of a case, from pre-trial motions through the trial itself. Along the way, the clerk is likely to have considerable contact with the parties to arrange scheduling and other administrative matters. A clerkship with a trial judge provides a valuable practical education in the litigation process.

Clerks for appellate judges, in contrast, work with complete trial court records. Thus their work involves the application of the law and not fact finding. As a result, they do not work with discovery management or witnesses, and they have less contact with practicing attorneys than do trial court clerks. They are expected to reflect in a scholarly yet practical way upon issues of law raised by the trial court record. Appellate courts tend to be collegial, and, consequently, appellate court clerks often work with clerks and judges in other chambers.

Regardless of the kind of court, the clerk's work depends chiefly upon the needs and practices of the judge. Some judges discuss questions with their clerks before reaching a decision. Some judges prefer oral briefings; others prefer written memoranda. Some judges expect their clerks to compose draft opinions or jury instructions; others ask their clerks only to provide Abench memos@ C informal memoranda to the judge that summarize the legal issues and sometimes recommend a particular action.

In staff attorney positions or court clerkships, the attorney works for the court as a whole, usually an appellate court. A court clerkship varies considerably from court to court. Generally, court clerks are responsible for such matters as pro se appeals, appeals to be decided summarily, substantive motions, and jurisdictional issues. Clerks prepare memoranda on these matters for the judges who will dispose of them.

For Law Students

Many judges engage law students to serve in externships or internships. (The terms are used interchangeably.) These are a kind of junior clerkship that often includes all the types of activities carried out by clerks. Law students who participate in externship programs often significantly improve their academic performance and raise their grade point averages because they develop practical insights and a solid understanding of the law and the process of its application in actual cases. The optimum time for such an experience is during the summer after the first year of law school or during the second year of law school, when the experience can impact on the student's performance in later law school courses. However, some courts consider only third-year law students for these positions. The experience of working for a court often creates new opportunities for students, opportunities that they might otherwise not have. Many externs perform so well that upon graduation they obtain judicial clerkships that might not have been available to them without the externship experience.

Judiciary

Judicial Clerkships - Why the Courts?