Some law grads stack judicial clerkships, closing others out of coveted opportunity
A new study says access to judicial clerkships is shrinking as some law graduates grab multiple coveted positions.
Access to judicial clerkships is shrinking as some law graduates grab multiple coveted positions—sometimes as many as four—before entering the workforce, according to a new study by three law professors.
This hurts graduates of non-elite law schools whose finances don’t allow them to delay higher paid jobs, first-generation lawyers and those without insider hiring information, according to “Stacking the Deck,” by Vanderbilt University Law School professor Tracey George with Mitu Gulati, University of Virginia School of Law professor, and Albert Yoon, University of Toronto Faculty of Law.
While high in prestige, one-year judicial clerkships come with relatively modest pay of about $65,000. But they are considered “golden tickets,” the authors say, as former clerks sometimes receive bonuses from law firms of $100,000 or more.
Fueling the trend are easy online applications to multiple judges. the authors say. Judges are inundated with candidates, and a prior clerkship gives the candidate an advantage in hiring for the next post, the study states.
“Solving this problem will require more than individual commitments to equity,” the study concludes. “It will require changes to the institutional structures—in law school, in the judicial conference and perhaps at the Supreme Court itself—that currently make stacking the rational choice.”
Reuters has the story.
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