The New Market for Federal Judicial Law Clerks

36 Pages Posted: 31 Jan 2007 Last revised: 9 Dec 2012

See all articles by Christopher Avery

Christopher Avery

Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Christine Jolls

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Yale Law School

Richard A. Posner

University of Chicago Law School; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Alvin E. Roth

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Dept. of Economics, Stanford University

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Abstract

In the past, judges have often hired applicants for judicial clerkships as early as the beginning of the second year of law school, for positions commencing approximately two years down the road. In the new hiring regime for federal judicial law clerks, by contrast, judges are exhorted to follow a set of start dates for considering and hiring applicants during the fall of the third year of law school. Using the same general methodology as we employed in a study of the market for federal judicial law clerks conducted in 1998-2000, we have broadly surveyed both federal appellate judges and law students about their experiences of the new market for law clerks. This Article analyzes our findings within the prevailing economic framework for studying markets with tendencies toward early hiring - a framework we both draw upon and modify in the course of our analysis. Our data make clear that the movement of the clerkship market back to the third year of law school is highly valued by judges, but we also find that a strong majority of the judges responding to our surveys has concluded that non-adherence to the specified start dates is very substantial - a conclusion we are able to corroborate with specific quantitative data from both judge and student surveys. The consistent experience of a wide range of other markets suggests that such non-adherence in the law clerk market will lead to either a reversion to very early hiring or the use of a centralized matching system such as that used for medical residencies. We suggest, however, potential avenues by which the clerkship market could stabilize at something like its present pattern of mixed adherence and non-adherence, thereby avoiding the complete abandonment of the current system.

Keywords: Judicial clerkships, judges

JEL Classification: J41, J44, J48

Suggested Citation

Avery, Christopher and Jolls, Christine and Jolls, Christine and Posner, Richard A. and Roth, Alvin E. and Roth, Alvin E., The New Market for Federal Judicial Law Clerks. University of Chicago Law Review, Forthcoming, Yale Law School, Public Law Working Paper No. 122, Yale Law & Economics Research Paper No. 345, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=959696

Christopher Avery

Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) ( email )

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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Christine Jolls (Contact Author)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Yale Law School ( email )

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Richard A. Posner

University of Chicago Law School ( email )

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Alvin E. Roth

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Dept. of Economics, Stanford University ( email )

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