Why Should I Clerk for a Judge?

You may be asking yourself: should I clerk for a judge?  A surface-level search of articles answering this question overwhelmingly show it is a good decision for law graduates to mid-level associates who seek to practice law.  You would be hard-pressed to find an article opining otherwise.

A more informative question to ask is: why should I clerk for a judge?  There are six major reasons why you should consider a clerkship.

First: Making a Difference

Clerking for a judge is an act of public service that, in turn, increases the clerk's quality of life.  A law clerk is a public servant because he or she helps a judge adjudicate disputes between entities and members of the public.  Necessarily, law clerks help settle disputes and enable litigants to get past their quarrels.

Simply put, it feels good to assist in the administration of justice.  Law clerks experience the end to disputes that have been extended through the litigation process.  Even better, law clerks help find the correct ending to such disputes.  This process is gratifying.  Further, the gratification comes sooner and more often than it would present itself in private practice.

In private practice, a resolution to a discrete matter or the heart of the issue being litigated may not come for years after the litigation begins.  As such, associates are racing to pile up billable hours without a gratifying result that validates their work.  This is dissimilar to a clerkship experience.  For example, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge may rule on anywhere between one to five dispositive matters a day.  It follows that law clerks gain an immense feeling of satisfaction from the work that they do.

Second: Experiencing the Internal Pressures of the Court

Courts, like any other institution, face internal pressures that affect the practice of law.  The primary internal pressure courts grapple with is their allocation of limited resources to address matters in a timely fashion.  Simply put, this means judges have little time to address many matters.

The chocolate factory scene from I Love Lucy comes to mind when thinking of judges' schedules in Los Angeles Superior Court.  In that scene, Lucy and Ethel wrap chocolates on a chocolate factory assembly line.  The assembly line speeds up rapidly.  Lucy and Ethel quickly are unable to wrap all the chocolates due to their limited resources.

Similarly, judges occasionally find they do not have enough resources to address all matters before them.  Many judges find that there are simply too many matters to rule on in a single day.  This requires careful time management and prioritization of more pressing matters while continuing other matters.  An associate at a law firm is unlikely to be privy to these pressures and, thus, may not understand the importance of writing a good brief.  Unlike associates without clerkship experience, a former law clerk will understand the importance of concision and precision in writing briefs through first-hand experience of the time-pressures courts experience.

Third: Working Closely with a Seasoned Lawyer

It is unlikely that a first-year or second-year associate will be able to work directly with a seasoned lawyer unless working at a small or boutique law firm.  Rather, such new attorneys would likely work with mid-level or senior associates.  This could be a great experience.  However, working for a judge who had practiced law for twenty years, or more, will expose a fresh lawyer to a greater pool of knowledge.

Moreover, there is typically a lower clerk-to-judge ratio than there is an associate-to-partner ratio.  A single partner at a large or medium law firm may indirectly work with ten or more entry-level associates.  In contrast, a supreme court justice may work directly with up to five clerks while judges presiding over lower courts may work directly with one to three clerks.  Often times, in busy courts like Los Angeles Superior Court, a single clerk may even work for multiple judges.  The result of the low clerk-to-judge ratio is an ideal working situation for young lawyers.

A clerk is to expect two major benefits from working with a judge in the above described intimate setting.  First, the clerk's writing and advocacy techniques will blossom through direct and indirect constructive criticism of work product.  Second, the clerk will likely gain one of the best mentors because the clerk can tap into his or her judge's network and knowledge of the legal marketplace, which could very well have been expanding for decades.  Unlike judicial clerks, young associates are unlikely to gain the same relationship with a partner at a law firm a similar same rate due to the indirect working relationship between the two.

Fourth: Seeing Good and Bad Advocacy

Clerks see all levels of advocacy.  Some of that advocacy harnesses the perfect balance between precision and concision.  Those briefs and oral arguments include just enough of relevant law and facts for the judge to make a decision without looking elsewhere.  It seems simple to do this, but it is not.  The rarity of such persuasive argumentation is exemplified by the lack of it.

More commonly, clerks will see bad advocacy.  For example, a brief may include colorful adjectives that merely appeal to emotion opposed to the facts of the dispute at bar.  A clerk's exposure to bad advocacy is beneficial because it allows the clerk to see ineffective techniques and, importantly, why they are ineffective.  Colorful adjectives, such as an "expensive" watch that was stolen, does not put the judge on notice of the exact damages the victim suffered when the watch was taken.  Such imprecise and excessive language takes away from the judge's precious time.  And, thus, the clerk will realize not just what verbiage to omit from a brief or oral argument, but why.

Fifth: Gaining an Understanding of the Relevant Civil Procedure

A clerkship will enable a young attorney to become fluent in a jurisdiction's code of civil procedure.  Judicial clerks go through a common set of procedural metrics in deciding whether to advise a judge to grant or deny a motion.  For example, a motion cannot be granted unless a sufficient amount of time has passed between the service of the motion and the hearing date on the motion for due process to be afforded.  This procedural requirement is repeatedly reviewed by a judicial clerk on a daily basis and, thus, the relevant timing and code section quickly becomes memorized.

In contrast, it is uncertain when an associate will first interact with basic sections of the relevant code of civil procedure, such as the notice requirement that must exist between the filing of and hearing of a motion.  The bigger the law firm, the less likely an associate will interact with sections like this early in his or her career.

A judicial clerk, on the other hand, will not only become well versed in commonly applicable sections of the relevant code of civil procedure, but also less traversed sections.  There are an overwhelming number of sections of any single code of civil procedure.  Some sections handle common matters like the notice requirement explained above.  Others are concerned with rarer situations, such as contexts concerning the renaming of a party who transferred its interest in the litigation to a non-party.  Clerking for a judge exposes a clerk to the gamut of the relevant code of civil procedure.

Sixth: Encountering Different Types of Motions

One source of anxiety for a new associate is being asked to draft a motion, but not having the slightest clue what the requested motion is.  It has been said many times: law school trains you only to think like a lawyer.  This training will certainly help an associate to discover what the requested motion is.  However, most of this leg work would likely result in time spent researching that cannot be billed.

A judicial clerkship provides a constant exposure to different motions.  This includes non-dispositive discovery motions, motions that seek judgments on the merits, post-trial motions, and too many more to describe here.  Seeing the different types of motions and diving into the details of each tends to prepare a clerk better for a later assignment to draft moving, opposing, or reply papers.  More specifically, clerks work with more unfamiliar motions than similarly senior associates, which, in turn, likely will give clerks an advantage in researching motions in the future.

Conclusion

There are many benefits to be gained in clerking for a judge.  The six described above are just a glimpse of why law students, graduates, and attorneys should consider a judicial clerkship.