Penn Clerkship Discussion/Movement Forum

[Anonymous User]

Have you met Scirica? He’s a dinosaur.

You don’t understand how SCOTUS hiring works. Go read the SCOTUS Clerk thread. Connections are key. Old man river and Inspector Javert aren’t enough. UVA sends leagues more than us because their faculty is better connected in aggregate. That affects non SCOTUS clerkship hiring too - which was the entire point of this conversation before you derailed it.

[Anonymous User]

Have you met Scirica? He’s a dinosaur.

You don’t understand how SCOTUS hiring works. Go read the SCOTUS Clerk thread. Connections are key. Old man river and Inspector Javert aren’t enough. UVA sends leagues more than us because their faculty is better connected in aggregate. That affects non SCOTUS clerkship hiring too - which was the entire point of this conversation before you derailed it.

The poster bitching about how Penn won’t hire conservatives derailed the thread. Tell that to the 1Ls who had to sit through Morse and Klick in required classes. UVA is different because the student body is full of republicans. LOL at Inspector Javert.

[Anonymous User]

It’s crazy that this is true, but I feel like part of it is just simply because Penn doesn’t have a heavy hitting faculty. They don’t proactively try to help the top students because we don’t have professors who can do much for the top students anyway. Do we even have a single professor who clerked for a current SCOTUS justice or any feeder judge? Penn’s faculty is frankly nowhere near the level of HYSC. It’s honestly not even on par with most of the T14 or other solid schools like Notre Dame, Texas, and Vanderbilt.

No. Partially because the administration hasn’t and will not hire conservatives.

Isn’t Bibas becoming a pretty major conservative feeder judge. He hires a ton from Penn. And just a couple posts above, Tatel has been a feeder judge. Recent Penn SCOTUS clerk who is conservative is teaching a seminar this fall and fedsoc is encouraging students to take his class. The real problem is that most SCOTUS justices, Srinivasan, etc want people from HYS. If you wanted to clerk on the Supreme Court you shouldn’t have come to Penn. From what I’ve heard, the class of 2024 has done really well with clerkships. Dumb to complain about Penn not hiring conservative professors because conservatives are not the ones who need well connected professors to get them clerkships.

Bibas is the only actual current conservative heavy hitter affiliated with Penn but he just teaches one class. Basically every law school in a major city has adjuncts like this. It’s not impressive for Penn to have a person or two like this.

He teaches two classes. How many schools have more than one feeder or semi feeder circuit judge as an adjunct?

Like half the T14 at least. It’s obviously awesome that he teaches but it’s hilarious to act like Penn’s faculty is decent compared to peer schools because one big time judge teaches as an adjunct. That doesn’t set us apart. I also am not saying that we need to hire conservatives in particular. I’m just making the point that our faculty as a whole is not well connected to the judiciary. But it is obviously true that there really aren’t many respected conservative academics on the faculty at Penn.

Here is a list of feeder judges for OT 2023 through OT 2025 per David Lat:

Katsas (9)

Thapar (8)

Grant (5)

Oldham (5)

W. Pryor (5)

Friedrich (D.D.C.) (5)

Bibas (4)

Newsom (4)

Srinivasan (3)

Kovner (E.D.N.Y.) (3)

Barron (2)

Pillard (2)

J.R. Walker (2)

Wilkinson (2)

Engelmayer (S.D.N.Y.) (2)

Mitchell (Ala.) (2)


Here's another, older list I found

Kavanaugh, Brett M. (CADC) 25 5.54%
Sutton, Jeffrey S. (CA6) 24 5.32%
Garland, Merrick B. (CADC) 22 4.88%
Katzmann, Robert A. (CA2) 22 4.88%
Pryor, William H. (CA11) 20 4.43%
Griffith, Thomas B. (CADC) 17 3.77%
Srinivasan, Srikanth (CADC) 17 3.77%
Wilkinson, J. Harvie (CA4) 17 3.77%
Tatel, David S. (CADC) 16 3.55%
Gorsuch, Neil M. (CA10) 13 2.88%
Boasberg, James E. (DDC) 12 2.66%
O'Scannlain, Diarmuid F. (CA9) 12 2.66%
Katsas, Gregory G. (CADC) 11 2.44%
Kethledge, Raymond M. (CA6) 11 2.44%
Kozinski, Alex (CA9) 9 2.00%
Thapar, Amul R. (CA6) 9 2.00%
Calabresi, Guido (CA2) 7 1.55%
Fletcher, William A. (CA9) 7 1.55%
Friedrich, Dabney L. (DDC) 7 1.55%
Livingston, Debra Ann (CA2) 7 1.55%
Pillard, Cornelia T. (CADC) 7 1.55%
Sykes, Diane S. (CA7) 7 1.55%
Jones, Edith Hollan (CA5) 6 1.33%
Rakoff, Jed S. (SDNY) 6 1.33%
Watford, Paul J. (CA9) 6 1.33%
Chhabria, Vince Girdhari (NDCA) 5 1.11%
Lohier, Raymond J. (CA2) 5 1.11%
Reinhardt, Stephen (CA9) 5 1.11%
Barrett, Amy Coney (CA7) 4 0.89%
Brown, Janice Rogers (CADC) 4 0.89%
Feinerman, Gary Scott (NDIL) 4 0.89%
Furman, Jesse M. (SDNY) 4 0.89%
Grant, Britt C. (CA11) 4 0.89%
Hardiman, Thomas M. (CA3) 4 0.89%
Leon, Richard J. (DDC) 4 0.89%
Millett, Patricia Ann (CADC) 4 0.89%
Moss, Randolph D. (DDC) 4 0.89%
Nathan, Alison J. (SDNY) 4 0.89%
Rao, Neomi J. (CADC) 4 0.89%
Scirica, Anthony J. (CA3) 4 0.89%
Sullivan, Richard J. (CA2) 4 0.89%

Tell me which six or so schools have 1-2 regularly teaching like Bibas and Scirica. Don't care if you use a different list. Our problem is not faculty. It's that we're just not HYS. If you want to clerk on the Supreme Court or CADC you should've tried harder on LSAT/college GPA.

I’m not going to waste time looking all this shit up but I know off the top of my head and after a few google searches that Thapar has taught or currently teaches at Notre Dame and Virginia. Sutton teaches a seminar at HLS. Pillard teaches at Georgetown. Oldham is an adjunct at Texas. Pryor teaches a class on interpretation at Alabama. Wilkinson used to teach at Virginia. Kethledge teaches at HLS.

And again, having one solid judge on the faculty does not make up for the rest of the faculty being weak. I’m not saying that we are HYS. But we get hammered in elite clerkship placement by schools like UVA, Notre Dame, and Georgetown. The faculty is the reason. I also don’t know why this thread randomly got focused on conservatives trying to get SCOTUS. The poster above was just making the common sense observation that Penn could probably increase SCOTUS numbers if it added like one connected conservative Professor because obviously the majority of the court is conservative. I am unfortunately not SCOTUS material though.

[Anonymous User]

No. Partially because the administration hasn’t and will not hire conservatives.

Isn’t Bibas becoming a pretty major conservative feeder judge. He hires a ton from Penn. And just a couple posts above, Tatel has been a feeder judge. Recent Penn SCOTUS clerk who is conservative is teaching a seminar this fall and fedsoc is encouraging students to take his class. The real problem is that most SCOTUS justices, Srinivasan, etc want people from HYS. If you wanted to clerk on the Supreme Court you shouldn’t have come to Penn. From what I’ve heard, the class of 2024 has done really well with clerkships. Dumb to complain about Penn not hiring conservative professors because conservatives are not the ones who need well connected professors to get them clerkships.

Bibas is the only actual current conservative heavy hitter affiliated with Penn but he just teaches one class. Basically every law school in a major city has adjuncts like this. It’s not impressive for Penn to have a person or two like this.

He teaches two classes. How many schools have more than one feeder or semi feeder circuit judge as an adjunct?

Like half the T14 at least. It’s obviously awesome that he teaches but it’s hilarious to act like Penn’s faculty is decent compared to peer schools because one big time judge teaches as an adjunct. That doesn’t set us apart. I also am not saying that we need to hire conservatives in particular. I’m just making the point that our faculty as a whole is not well connected to the judiciary. But it is obviously true that there really aren’t many respected conservative academics on the faculty at Penn.

Here is a list of feeder judges for OT 2023 through OT 2025 per David Lat:

Katsas (9)

Thapar (8)

Grant (5)

Oldham (5)

W. Pryor (5)

Friedrich (D.D.C.) (5)

Bibas (4)

Newsom (4)

Srinivasan (3)

Kovner (E.D.N.Y.) (3)

Barron (2)

Pillard (2)

J.R. Walker (2)

Wilkinson (2)

Engelmayer (S.D.N.Y.) (2)

Mitchell (Ala.) (2)


Here's another, older list I found

Kavanaugh, Brett M. (CADC) 25 5.54%
Sutton, Jeffrey S. (CA6) 24 5.32%
Garland, Merrick B. (CADC) 22 4.88%
Katzmann, Robert A. (CA2) 22 4.88%
Pryor, William H. (CA11) 20 4.43%
Griffith, Thomas B. (CADC) 17 3.77%
Srinivasan, Srikanth (CADC) 17 3.77%
Wilkinson, J. Harvie (CA4) 17 3.77%
Tatel, David S. (CADC) 16 3.55%
Gorsuch, Neil M. (CA10) 13 2.88%
Boasberg, James E. (DDC) 12 2.66%
O'Scannlain, Diarmuid F. (CA9) 12 2.66%
Katsas, Gregory G. (CADC) 11 2.44%
Kethledge, Raymond M. (CA6) 11 2.44%
Kozinski, Alex (CA9) 9 2.00%
Thapar, Amul R. (CA6) 9 2.00%
Calabresi, Guido (CA2) 7 1.55%
Fletcher, William A. (CA9) 7 1.55%
Friedrich, Dabney L. (DDC) 7 1.55%
Livingston, Debra Ann (CA2) 7 1.55%
Pillard, Cornelia T. (CADC) 7 1.55%
Sykes, Diane S. (CA7) 7 1.55%
Jones, Edith Hollan (CA5) 6 1.33%
Rakoff, Jed S. (SDNY) 6 1.33%
Watford, Paul J. (CA9) 6 1.33%
Chhabria, Vince Girdhari (NDCA) 5 1.11%
Lohier, Raymond J. (CA2) 5 1.11%
Reinhardt, Stephen (CA9) 5 1.11%
Barrett, Amy Coney (CA7) 4 0.89%
Brown, Janice Rogers (CADC) 4 0.89%
Feinerman, Gary Scott (NDIL) 4 0.89%
Furman, Jesse M. (SDNY) 4 0.89%
Grant, Britt C. (CA11) 4 0.89%
Hardiman, Thomas M. (CA3) 4 0.89%
Leon, Richard J. (DDC) 4 0.89%
Millett, Patricia Ann (CADC) 4 0.89%
Moss, Randolph D. (DDC) 4 0.89%
Nathan, Alison J. (SDNY) 4 0.89%
Rao, Neomi J. (CADC) 4 0.89%
Scirica, Anthony J. (CA3) 4 0.89%
Sullivan, Richard J. (CA2) 4 0.89%

Tell me which six or so schools have 1-2 regularly teaching like Bibas and Scirica. Don't care if you use a different list. Our problem is not faculty. It's that we're just not HYS. If you want to clerk on the Supreme Court or CADC you should've tried harder on LSAT/college GPA.

I’m not going to waste time looking all this shit up but I know off the top of my head and after a few google searches that Thapar has taught or currently teaches at Notre Dame and Virginia. Sutton teaches a seminar at HLS. Pillard teaches at Georgetown. Oldham is an adjunct at Texas. Pryor teaches a class on interpretation at Alabama. Wilkinson used to teach at Virginia. Kethledge teaches at HLS.

And again, having one solid judge on the faculty does not make up for the rest of the faculty being weak. I’m not saying that we are HYS. But we get hammered in elite clerkship placement by schools like UVA, Notre Dame, and Georgetown. The faculty is the reason. I also don’t know why this thread randomly got focused on conservatives trying to get SCOTUS. The poster above was just making the common sense observation that Penn could probably increase SCOTUS numbers if it added like one connected conservative Professor because obviously the majority of the court is conservative. I am unfortunately not SCOTUS material though.

These schools have at 2x the number of conservative students that Penn has. Notre Dame probably more than 2x.

[Anonymous User]

Getting this back on track… Penn’s faculty is not connected. Very few clerked for federal judges. Of those judges, many/most are senior status. This impacts clerkship numbers.

[Anonymous User]

I got a district clerkship. How do I best take advantage of this in the search for an appellate clerkship?

[Anonymous User]

I got a district clerkship. How do I best take advantage of this in the search for an appellate clerkship?

Just applying with the clerkship lined up is a huge boost. You can also let your judge know you are interested in another.

[Anonymous User]

I got a district clerkship. How do I best take advantage of this in the search for an appellate clerkship?

Just applying with the clerkship lined up is a huge boost. You can also let your judge know you are interested in another.

Make sure you put the district court clerkship both on your resume & in your cover letter. Some chambers start by just reviewing resumes, others start with a cover letter glance.

Let your recommenders know you have the district court clerkship and that you are about to start the appellate process. Two of my recommenders updated their letters for my new search.

[Anonymous User]

Weren't they trying to hire Kate Shaw?

[Anonymous User]

Weren't they trying to hire Kate Shaw?

I hope so. She can send students to Posner and Stevens!

[Anonymous User]

Why does Chris send out random emails encouraging people to clerk for state trial judges in Alaska and intermediate state appellate courts in random states?

[Anonymous User]

Why does Chris send out random emails encouraging people to clerk for state trial judges in Alaska and intermediate state appellate courts in random states?

No one wants this. As evidenced by the clerkship spreadsheet. The vast majority of state court clerkships are Chancery and Delaware Supreme. Not Alaska trial division lmao

[Anonymous User]

Why does Chris send out random emails encouraging people to clerk for state trial judges in Alaska and intermediate state appellate courts in random states?

No one wants this. As evidenced by the clerkship spreadsheet. The vast majority of state court clerkships are Chancery and Delaware Supreme. Not Alaska trial division lmao

Penn students don’t even seem to want to do district court clerkships in random states, based on the spreadsheet. OTOH I’d love to do Alaska Supreme Court… but I love the outdoors

[Anonymous User]

Why does Chris send out random emails encouraging people to clerk for state trial judges in Alaska and intermediate state appellate courts in random states?

No one wants this. As evidenced by the clerkship spreadsheet. The vast majority of state court clerkships are Chancery and Delaware Supreme. Not Alaska trial division lmao

Penn students don’t even seem to want to do district court clerkships in random states, based on the spreadsheet. OTOH I’d love to do Alaska Supreme Court… but I love the outdoors

If I were single without obligations, I’d love to do Alaska Supreme Court. It’s a very well respected state court and they have a relatively unique state constitution. People sleep on state Supreme Court clerkships. A lot of them are still viewed very favorably and you get a clerkship bonus from most firms.

[Anonymous User]

We are Penn. We might be Harvard’s little sister but we are an Ivy League school. And when no one from our ranks is getting a NYC clerkship, maybe one person max in California, one or two people in DC, etc., it’s a disgrace.

[Anonymous User]

We are Penn. We might be Harvard’s little sister but we are an Ivy League school. And when no one from our ranks is getting a NYC clerkship, maybe one person max in California, one or two people in DC, etc., it’s a disgrace.

We get that you're angry you didn't get an interview in one of these districts but you need to take a deep breath and a long walk. Application season in these districts continues forever. See, e.g., Judge Frimpong just posted in C.D. Cal.

[Anonymous User]

We are Penn. We might be Harvard’s little sister but we are an Ivy League school. And when no one from our ranks is getting a NYC clerkship, maybe one person max in California, one or two people in DC, etc., it’s a disgrace.

Why do you have to be in one of DC NY or California

[Anonymous User]

We are Penn. We might be Harvard’s little sister but we are an Ivy League school. And when no one from our ranks is getting a NYC clerkship, maybe one person max in California, one or two people in DC, etc., it’s a disgrace.

Why do you have to be in one of DC NY or California

because there's no good clerkships anywhere but in DC, NY, or CA. the coasts are the only place worth being. /s

[Anonymous User]

We are Penn. We might be Harvard’s little sister but we are an Ivy League school. And when no one from our ranks is getting a NYC clerkship, maybe one person max in California, one or two people in DC, etc., it’s a disgrace.

Why do you have to be in one of DC NY or California

because there's no good clerkships anywhere but in DC, NY, or CA. the coasts are the only place worth being. /s

Have you considered applying to the New Hampshire Superior Court?

[Anonymous User]

We are Penn. We might be Harvard’s little sister but we are an Ivy League school. And when no one from our ranks is getting a NYC clerkship, maybe one person max in California, one or two people in DC, etc., it’s a disgrace.

Why do you have to be in one of DC NY or California

because there's no good clerkships anywhere but in DC, NY, or CA. the coasts are the only place worth being. /s

NY is for suckers.

[Anonymous User]

We are Penn. We might be Harvard’s little sister but we are an Ivy League school. And when no one from our ranks is getting a NYC clerkship, maybe one person max in California, one or two people in DC, etc., it’s a disgrace.

Why do you have to be in one of DC NY or California

because there's no good clerkships anywhere but in DC, NY, or CA. the coasts are the only place worth being. /s

you seem fun and positive, I'm just sure you'll land something soon!

[Anonymous User]

It's really shameful how nasty this thread has gotten. What ever happened to "collegiality?"

[Anonymous User]

It's really shameful how nasty this thread has gotten. What ever happened to "collegiality?"

10% going to federal clerkships is nothing to scoff at, so I have a feeling some folks are getting a little frustrated by Penn students acting like it's impossible to succeed and all the cards are stacked against them. It probably doesn't help that this is right after folks have accepted that plan didn't pan out and there's a lot of work ahead if they still want to get a clerkship.

[Anonymous User]

It's really shameful how nasty this thread has gotten. What ever happened to "collegiality?"

Just the reality of <5 folks bouncing around perspectives of weak institutional support for their clerkship goals. Fair enough!

For rising 2L/3Ls - take Lou Capozzi's seminar this fall. Beyond clerking for Gorsuch and CA3/4 before that, he'd put you in touch with the former clerks of nearly any feeder judge in the country.

If you don't get in, read his class description, and tell me he won't still meet with you. There's your collegiality!

[Anonymous User]

It's really shameful how nasty this thread has gotten. What ever happened to "collegiality?"

10% going to federal clerkships is nothing to scoff at, so I have a feeling some folks are getting a little frustrated by Penn students acting like it's impossible to succeed and all the cards are stacked against them. It probably doesn't help that this is right after folks have accepted that plan didn't pan out and there's a lot of work ahead if they still want to get a clerkship.

I think it's also the general negative/snobby attitude toward anywhere that's not NY/CA/DC. Not likely to take OP very far and it's annoying to encounter these attitudes at a school like Penn where you expect your enormously privileged + power-seeking peers to have a more sophisticated and thoughtful way of looking at the world