In a challenging legal job market, employers are looking to hire those who possess skills honed on the job, making clerkship experience more valuable than ever to law students. According to the New Jersey Law Journal, nearly 30% of all new hires were made straight out of clerkships.
Rutgers Law–Camden, located a few blocks from federal, bankruptcy, and state courthouses, has an exceptional clerkship tradition, even ranking tops in the nation in state and local clerkships.
According to Rebekah Verona, director of the Office of Career Planning and Professional Development at Rutgers Law–Camden, the rankings recognize what has been a “strong tradition” at the campus. “We have a large community of alumni law clerks, many of whom regularly come back to the law school and extol the value of a clerkship.”
Rutgers Law–Camden students come to understand the value of a clerkship through these alumni, Verona explains, but also through their own experiences, as many students serves as interns and externs for judges during the summers or the academic year.
In 2013, U.S. News and World Report, and reported in JD Journal, ranked Rutgers Law–Camden in first place, with 38.7 percent holding clerkships, looking at employed 2011 graduates. Rutgers Law–Newark was a close second with 37.6 percent. The Rutgers–Camden classes from 2009 through 2012 each included from 73 to 97 members who became clerks. The 2013 numbers are not yet available.
Why is New Jersey an opportune locale for clerkships? The state offers more than 400 clerkships every year, because in the Garden State the clerkship is a one-year position that cannot be extended. In Pennsylvania, for example, hiring practices vary. “Some judges have term clerks and some have permanent clerks,” adds Verona. “The length of terms may vary, too and the timing of vacancies may not coincide with law school graduation dates.”
Obtaining federal clerkships out of state is also an option for Rutgers Law–Camden students. Steven Williamson ’13 is currently clerking in Little Rock for Chief United States District Judge Brian S. Miller in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas for a two-year term.
“I handle a third of Judge Miller’s docket, including all criminal and civil cases, and all motions, dispositive or otherwise,” writes Williamson in an email. “I want to be a litigator, and the perspective I am gaining both in chambers and in the courtroom is invaluable…Between the experience I am gaining now and the three years I spent at Rutgers–Camden, I could not have asked for a better education.”
The career planning office at Rutgers Law–Camden encourages students to explore a variety of clerkships with yearly panels of visiting alumni-law clerks and judges as well as clerkship application workshops, Verona says. The school also provides one-on-one judicial clerkship counseling in the office and copious online resources to help guide students through the exploration and application processes. In addition, many faculty members help support students in the clerkship application process by serving as faculty clerkship advisors.
From learning first-hand about the complexities that go into a judge’s decision-making process, to strengthening research, writing and analytical skills, to seeing different lawyering styles and learning which are most effective, the hands-on education a clerk receives after law school can be critical to future success, Verona says.
She sees the many benefits for graduates who go on to become law clerks. “Given the relatively short amount of time spent in a clerkship, the contacts, knowledge, skills, and experience clerks acquire are considerable.”
Ahmed Soliman, a 2010 graduate, clerked in the civil division of the New Jersey Superior Court for the Honorable Thomas W. Sumners Jr., J.S.C. Now an associate and member of Stark & Stark’s Bankruptcy and Creditors Rights Group, Soliman says that his clerkship experience was fantastic preparation for his successful litigation career at one of the largest firms in New Jersey. “The relationship with judges as a clerk gives you not only insight and perspective, but also substantive training. Because you’ve been on the other side of the court, it helps you as an attorney later.”