The Judicial Clerkship Hiring Frenzy

Story here.  (Hat tip to colleague Matt Sawchak.)

Query the judge's response if an applicant asked for a week to ten days to ponder an offer.   Faculty hiring committees typically give a candidate a brief response time, as do law review editors to authors.  Why the difference in treatment?

And would any clerkship applicant play the "trade up" game (akin to what happens in article placement)?  Why or why not?

Comments

[The Accidental Clerk]

"Query the judge's response if an applicant asked for a week to ten days to ponder an offer."

That would be a clear signal to the judge that the applicant had other clerkship interviews in the interim period that were for more attractice judges, and he'd probably demand an answer on the spot, or even revoke the offer.

"And would any clerkship applicant play the 'trade up' game (akin to what happens in article placement)? Why or why not?"

This is a good question. Probably not. First, there's the short term phenomenon that many schools' OCSs tell students that they must accept any clerkship offer on the spot.* I'm not sure this would survive a switch to a clerkship application world more closely resembling law review submission season, but it might. Second, I think applicants might be (rightly) concerned that their efforts to trade up would get back to the offering judge, who would then revoke the offer.

* I always thought this was silly. I had a wife and kids when applying for clerkships. I'm not going to call her to get her blessing before accepting a relatively low-paying, temporary job halfway across the country? Really? I'll ask for an hour to talk to her to decide (and tell the judge why), and if that results in the loss of an offer, than so be it (it didn't).

[Ani]

"Query the judge's response if an applicant asked for a week to ten days to ponder an offer."

As indicated, it would likely be negative. It may be different if the judge has difficulty attracting applicants of a similar caliber, or if s/he is inclined to behave maturely. Given the quality and number of applications, judges can actually afford now to be more deliberate, but they are not grasping that opportunity.

"Faculty hiring committees typically give a candidate a brief response time, as do law review editors to authors. Why the difference in treatment?"

Because they are completely dissimilar markets. Putting aside the issue of relative demand and supply-side power, which explains the differences almost completely, the clerkship market has few negotiating points (e.g., salaries are set), one decision-maker (the judge), and pressure on the student applicant to accept not only from the judge but also from faculty and the school's clerkship office. One might as well ask why mergers and acquisitions have different timelines than commodities futures markets.

"And would any clerkship applicant play the "trade up" game (akin to what happens in article placement)? Why or why not?"

It has been done, and used to be more common. But it was more subtle, because judges (used to?) place greater weight on behaving collegially toward one another.