Clerking and becoming an AUSA Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hi. 3L here at a T6. I want to be an AUSA in SDNY (or EDNY) and I've heard mixed things about the importance of clerking. Is it an absolute must? Do I need to do both a district and circuit clerkship? Is a district court clerkship better than a circuit clerkship?

[Anonymous User]

Hi. 3L here at a T6. I want to be an AUSA in SDNY (or EDNY) and I've heard mixed things about the importance of clerking. Is it an absolute must? Do I need to do both a district and circuit clerkship? Is a district court clerkship better than a circuit clerkship?

It's not super important but its only a year and it makes you look slightly better and also potentially makes you more popular among some of the white collar partners once you enter a firm. My advice is to do one for one year. I'm in the camp that thinks double clerking is incredibly overrated unless you're gunning for SCOTUS.

[Anonymous User]

I don’t think the prior poster is well-informed. Virtually all SDNY AUSAs clerked, mostly on SDNY, EDNY, and/or CA2. The SDNY criminal bar is a very insular world despite its national significance. If I could only do one, I would do district with a former AUSA with a good rep, but I would do both if I could.

[Anonymous User]

Do any SDNY judges have a bad rep?

[Anonymous User]

I don’t think the prior poster is well-informed. Virtually all SDNY AUSAs clerked, mostly on SDNY, EDNY, and/or CA2. The SDNY criminal bar is a very insular world despite its national significance.

I'm an AUSA in a non-SDNY/EDNY district, but FWIW, while this is obviously anecdotal, all the AUSAs I've encountered from those districts have clerked, often twice, and even outside those districts, I would say that the vast majority of AUSAs who come out of biglaw (as opposed to state/local prosecution) have clerked at least once.

Admittedly, this may be more correlation than causation. People who have the qualifications to get biglaw are more likely to have the qualifications to clerk, and among those people, those who want to do litigation are more likely to want to clerk, so that's going to shape the applicant pool. But still, it's notable. (And FWIW, if you enter a USAO through the honors program, a federal clerkship is required even to be considered.)

IME, most people did DCt; I have a vague sense that it's more common to do DCt + COA than only COA, but I can't really back that up, and I've certainly seen both. I think district court is more useful for learning about what most AUSAs do, but the difference in numbers may just be that there are more district court clerks out there.

If I could only do one, I would do district with a former AUSA with a good rep, but I would do both if I could.

I absolutely agree with this; in fact, if I could only do one I'd take district regardless of who the judge is (but of course former AUSA with a good rep, especially in the district where you want to work, is probably ideal).

I also don't think double-clerking is overrated at all, assuming it's two different levels of court. (I agree that double-COA is absolutely overrated unless gunning for SCOTUS.) But I wouldn't say it's necessary, and think it's completely fair to consider whether you want to pass on another year of biglaw salary, will you have to move somewhere else and move back, are you just not into the legal nerdery of COA v. trial court, etc. My sense is that double-clerking is not going to improve your candidacy over single-clerking as much as clerking at all will improve it over not clerking.

[Anonymous User]

Hi. 3L here at a T6. I want to be an AUSA in SDNY (or EDNY) and I've heard mixed things about the importance of clerking. Is it an absolute must? Do I need to do both a district and circuit clerkship? Is a district court clerkship better than a circuit clerkship?

Clerking is close to a must have. Best case scenario would be 2d Cir. paired with SDNY or EDNY. If you only do one, it doesn’t matter much what level it’s at. District court will be more useful. The most common path is probably district court clerkship, then a few years at a top biglaw shop, then AUSA. But I’ve seen some people come straight from the clerkship recently. I think this could become more common since many EDNY and SDNY judges expect a couple years of big law experience from their clerks before they start clerking anyway.

[Anonymous User]

Do any SDNY judges have a bad rep?

100% yes. Look through other threads on this site.

[Anonymous User]

Do any SDNY judges have a bad rep?

100% yes. Look through other threads on this site.

Not OP, but curious about this. There are certainly bad reps as bosses, but I'm curious whether the SDNY office judges candidates based on what SDNY judge they clerked for or whether clerking in SDNY is more of a prereq

[Anonymous User]

Does Judge Chen send many former clerks to USAO for EDNY or SDNY?

[Anonymous User]

Does Judge Chen send many former clerks to USAO for EDNY or SDNY?

Not really.