Judicial Clerkships

[mcleod13]

Hey everyone. Just wanted to gather some advice. I am dying to get out of Southern Illinois. I have wrote about this before as some might remember. Couple of things:.
1) since I go to a school that is not a Top tier school is it possible to get a judicial clerkship? I have yet to hear of anyone getting one.
2) I would LOVE to clerk at either the USVI, Northern Mariana, Palau(I know they require 1 year post JD at Palau), or somewhere like these areas.
3) i want to be a prosecutor when I get out so I am not worried if the right judical clerkship position would lead to a biglaw gig. Not interested.
4) I clerked for judges for about 6 months, I am doing an externship this summer with the SAO, I will also be working with a professor at my school who is working on a textbook doing research and writing for the textbook. Will this help me.
5) My ranking in my class is top 1/3 so I am not to high up there. I was 13th in my class but had to miss an entire month of school to be with my wife while she was in ICU. I still passed all my class above the median, but I still took a hit. Not trying to sounce egotistical, just want to tell what happened and see if anyone thinks that judges will look at this as a positive in a negative situation.

Anyway, I know I have alot of things going against me, but I will take any and all advice.

[Lawbster]

Hey everyone. Just wanted to gather some advice. I am dying to get out of Southern Illinois. I have wrote about this before as some might remember. Couple of things:.
1) since I go to a school that is not a Top tier school is it possible to get a judicial clerkship? I have yet to hear of anyone getting one.
2) I would LOVE to clerk at either the USVI, Northern Mariana, Palau(I know they require 1 year post JD at Palau), or somewhere like these areas.
3) i want to be a prosecutor when I get out so I am not worried if the right judical clerkship position would lead to a biglaw gig. Not interested.
4) I clerked for judges for about 6 months, I am doing an externship this summer with the SAO, I will also be working with a professor at my school who is working on a textbook doing research and writing for the textbook. Will this help me.
5) My ranking in my class is top 1/3 so I am not to high up there. I was 13th in my class but had to miss an entire month of school to be with my wife while she was in ICU. I still passed all my class above the median, but I still took a hit. Not trying to sounce egotistical, just want to tell what happened and see if anyone thinks that judges will look at this as a positive in a negative situation.

Anyway, I know I have alot of things going against me, but I will take any and all advice.

Info on Southern Illinois? Is that a law school? Accredited? If so, tier?

Without knowing what school that is, and assuming it's a law school, I have to assume it's either a tier 3, 4 or unaccredited. If so, you'll have a hard time clerking ANYWHERE but the same city this school is in. From what I know about obscure law schools, generally you need to be at the top of the class, as in top few people. Conversely, if you can find a judge that went to that school (there are lots of TTT judges in the areas that they went to school), you may have a shot.

I know the clerkships you mentioned are pretty competitive because everyone wants to do a year of clerk/sit on a beach on an island.

[mcleod13]

Yeah, Southern Illinois is an accredited law school. Last year it was a 3rd tier, now, somehow it dropped to fourth teir without even changing ranking number. Don't know who that happened.
Anyway, I kind of figured that it was a loooong shot. I was trying to go back into the military but since I have Acid Reflux, I can't go back in.

[mcleod13]

I still don't get what the big difference between the top schools and lower schools. Alot of the lower schools have higher bar passage rates, plus they are cheaper. Kind of sucks for us that have a family and had no choice about where to go...

[PSUDSL08]

Hey everyone. Just wanted to gather some advice. I am dying to get out of Southern Illinois. I have wrote about this before as some might remember. Couple of things:.
1) since I go to a school that is not a Top tier school is it possible to get a judicial clerkship? I have yet to hear of anyone getting one.
2) I would LOVE to clerk at either the USVI, Northern Mariana, Palau(I know they require 1 year post JD at Palau), or somewhere like these areas.
3) i want to be a prosecutor when I get out so I am not worried if the right judical clerkship position would lead to a biglaw gig. Not interested.
4) I clerked for judges for about 6 months, I am doing an externship this summer with the SAO, I will also be working with a professor at my school who is working on a textbook doing research and writing for the textbook. Will this help me.
5) My ranking in my class is top 1/3 so I am not to high up there. I was 13th in my class but had to miss an entire month of school to be with my wife while she was in ICU. I still passed all my class above the median, but I still took a hit. Not trying to sounce egotistical, just want to tell what happened and see if anyone thinks that judges will look at this as a positive in a negative situation.

Anyway, I know I have alot of things going against me, but I will take any and all advice.

I would say that with your grades, you could very well have a shot clerking at the state trial court level. I interviewed with three judges in NJ/PA, and all three of them said they care less about grades and more about (1) personality (2) the quality of the writing sample submitted. Unfortunately, you would probably have to stay in Southern Illinois to have a shot at one of these positions.

It also depends on the state. NJ replaces their lower court clerks after every year where many of the judges I applied to in PA had career clerks. I'm not sure whether Illinois is like NJ, but if it is, I'd say your odds of landing a clerkship are even better.

[mcleod13]

I have already clerked for the state trial court judges here. I worked for them after my first year. I will find a way out of SoILL somehow. What kills me, is that I have a very good reason for my grades being so low.. I wasn't at school for a month my second semester of 1L year.. Oh well