When Cartels Unravel, Judicial Clerkship Market Edition
The National Law Journal reports (HT: Rick Hills):
Are the Wild West days of federal clerk hiring back? That’s what some law school administrators and judges fear. They worry that the voluntary system whereby federal judges wait until September of the 3L year to hire clerks is teetering. Judges are choosing clerks earlier in the year and are being inundated with applications as the legal job market narrows. And a trend toward hiring the already graduated means fewer positions are available for fresh law graduates.
There is a lot of support for “The Plan” in the legal profession, and amongst judges. Well, for the latter, at least there is a lot of apparent support for it. There is also, like most cartels, a lot of competition. Hills’ comment is characteristic of a view often heard within law schools on the clerkship market…