Reflections on the End of the Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan

Abstract

The D.C. Circuit recently announced it will no longer follow the Federal Judges Law Clerk Hiring Plan. With that announcement, the Plan effectively died — as countless clerkship applicants can now attest. As a postmortem, this essay argues that the Plan’s demise illustrates transcendent lessons about regulatory design. By reminding us of these lessons, the Plan’s legacy need not be one of failure, but of avoiding even greater failures in the future.

Keywords: Law clerk, Clerkship, Federal clerkship, Clerkship hiring, Federal judges law clerk hiring plan, Law student hiring, Federal law clerk, Law student interview, Clerkship interview, How do I become a federal law clerk, Tips on getting a federal law clerkshi

JEL Classification: K23, K21, K40