Featured Job Survey: Clerkship Bonuses

We received about 400 responses to last week’s ATL / Lateral Link survey on judicial clerk hiring. Roughly 140 of these responses were from current judicial clerks.

Although comments in last week’s post suggest a weakening market for judicial clerk hiring, the actual survey results were mixed. A couple dozen respondents claimed that their firms were not hiring judicial clerks, but there were other respondents at almost all of these firms who said that they were hiring clerks, as well as responses from clerks stating that they had received offers from these firms. (And, in at least three cases, I’ve personally worked with clerks who received offers at the supposedly non-hiring firms.) But it does seem clear that firms are more likely to hire clerks in their larger offices, especially New York, than in smaller branches.

That said, the clerks seem to be doing pretty well overall. A quarter of responding clerks have already accepted offers for post-clerkship employment, and another fifth have received offers but haven’t yet decided where to go. Fifteen percent have started interviewing. A quarter have not yet started looking. Only about sixteen percent have started looking, but haven’t yet landed interviews.

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Interestingly, 56% of the clerks who have accepted offers are going to firms that they did not work for before clerking. Almost 90% will receive clerkship bonuses, with more than half receiving $50,000.

Check out our table of clerkship bonuses, after the jump.

A number of participants were kind enough to describe their firms’ clerkship bonuses, which we merged with data from various public sources (including firm websites and Law Clerk Addict) and tips to generate the following bonus table for federal judicial clerks. (Please e-mail us with any updates or corrections, and we’ll periodically update the table.)

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Bonuses For Judicial Clerks By Firm

*Bonus may be lower in some offices.
**Bonus is only available to associates who previously summered at the firm.
***Bonus awarded for Federal Circuit clerkships only.
****Bonus may be higher in other cities.
++A higher bonus is available for 2-year clerks.

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