Permanent Offers from Summer Employers
The federal clerkship timing guidelines may raise potential complications if you receive an offer of permanent employment from your summer employer. If you find yourself in this situation, we believe that the best approach is to tell your employer that, while you are interested in the offer, you are also interested in applying for clerkships. Under the NALP Guidelines, you have until November 1 to accept your summer offer. If, by that time, you have not received a clerkship but still remain interested in one, you may have to negotiate an extension with your employer, a conditional acceptance based on the outcome of your clerkship applications, or some other mutually-acceptable alternative. Keep in mind that most legal employers value clerkships significantly; therefore, they most likely will be very supportive of your efforts to find a clerkship. What they will not support, however, is any indication that you are being deceptive. Therefore, the best advice is to be honest and up-front about your plans and keep your employer apprised of your circumstances throughout the fall.
Applications for Public Interest Fellowships and Government Honors Programs
Many public interest fellowships, including the Skadden and Equal Justice Works Fellowships, have application deadlines in the early fall. Therefore, the application process will directly collide with your search for a judicial clerkship. Indeed, Equal Justice Works frequently interviews applicants and extends offers from November to December. Therefore, you may be awarded an EJW Fellowship prior to receiving a clerkship offer.
The Skadden Fellowship Program has announced that it will allow a deferral of both the fellowship application (prior to a disposition) and the fellowship itself (after an award has been made) to students who receive a clerkship offer. Other funders however, including EJW, have not announced a policy in this regard.
The NALP Judicial Clerkship Working Group recommends that students applying for project-based fellowships (those where an organization works with an applicant to develop a project and apply for funding from outside sources) forego applying for clerkships until after a disposition on their fellowship application has been made. The reason for this is that, if the student withdraws from the fellowship application process, the sponsoring organization is typically left without a means of sponsoring a replacement, which can be severely detrimental to the organization. On the other hand, organization-based fellowships (those where an organization offers a temporary job to a new lawyer for a finite term) and government honors program employers, are not as hindered by applicants who withdraw to accept a clerkship offer. These employers can merely chose someone else.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding how to handle any of these situations, please see the judicial clerkship advisor in the Career Services Office.
