How to Get a Federal Clerkship: The Hiring Plan, OSCAR, What Judges Actually Read, and the Calendar Nobody Tells You About

NEW YORK — About 1,800 federal judges hire law clerks every year, in a process that is at once highly formalized — a national hiring plan, a single online portal, dates published to the day — and almost entirely discretionary, because no judge is bound by any of it. The result is a calendar with two tracks: the official one, which begins in June of the second year of law school, and the real one, which begins the first week of the first year and runs, for many clerks, several years past graduation. This guide covers both, and the parts in between that the law school handouts leave out.

"I read the writing sample first. If it is good, I read the rest. If it is not, nothing else in the file will save it," a district judge in the Northeast told The Counsel.

What a clerkship is

Type	What clerks do	Who hires
District court	Draft opinions on motions, manage the docket, attend trials and hearings, research for the judge	About 680 active and senior judges; one to three clerks each; term usually one or two years
Court of appeals	Draft bench memoranda and opinions on appeals; argument preparation	About 270 judges; three or four clerks each; the pipeline to the Supreme Court
Magistrate judge	Discovery disputes, pretrial matters, some trials by consent, habeas and Social Security cases	About 550 full-time magistrate judges; often hire from a wider range of schools
Bankruptcy court	Opinions in Chapter 7, 11 and 13 cases; a specialized docket	About 350 judges; valued by restructuring practices
Specialty courts	Court of International Trade, Court of Federal Claims, Tax Court, Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit	Smaller benches; patent, trade, tax and government-contracts practices recruit from them

The hiring plan

The Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan, adopted in 2018 and renewed since, is an agreement among judges who choose to follow it: they will not accept applications from or interview current law students until a date in June after the students' second year, when three semesters of grades are available, and they will not make offers before an interview date shortly after. Applications go through OSCAR, the judiciary's online clerkship system, which also handles letters of recommendation. The plan does not bind anyone. Judges who follow it say so on OSCAR; judges who do not hire whenever they like — in the spring of the first year, in the fall of the second, or from lawyers in practice. A rough rule from clerkship offices: most district judges follow the plan or something close to it; a large share of circuit judges, including many of the most sought after, do not.

The calendar

When	What to do
1L fall and spring	Grades. Nothing else matters as much. Join a journal competition in the spring; take a research assistant position if offered.
1L summer	A judicial internship, government or public interest job that produces a writing sample and a reference. Some off-plan judges hire 1Ls for clerkships beginning after graduation; your clerkship office will know which.
2L fall	Journal, moot court, a seminar paper. Identify three recommenders and tell them your plans. Research judges: dockets, locations, former clerks' paths.
2L spring	Finalize the writing sample, the résumé and a cover letter template. Confirm recommenders will upload to OSCAR. Watch for off-plan judges hiring 2Ls.
May after 2L	Assemble OSCAR applications in draft so they can be released the day the plan opens. Target 40 to 100 judges depending on competitiveness and geographic flexibility.
Mid-June after 2L	Plan date: applications released. Plan-following judges review immediately.
Late June after 2L	Interview date: interviews and offers begin, often same-day. Many are by video; some judges require in person.
3L and beyond	Continuing applications to off-plan judges and for alumni clerkships; OSCAR lists openings continuously. Many clerks start one to three years after graduation.

The materials

• Cover letter. One page, addressed to the judge by name, explaining in a paragraph why this judge and this court; a tie to the district — family, a summer job, a plan to practice there — is the most persuasive sentence most applicants can write.
• Résumé. One page; law school first; journal, moot court and honors prominent; undergraduate and work history brief.
• Transcript. Unofficial is fine for most judges; some require official.
• Writing sample. Ten to twenty pages, entirely your own work, lightly edited at most, with a cover note explaining what it is and that any client information has been removed. A seminar paper, a journal note or a memorandum from a summer job; not a brief heavily revised by a supervisor, and never anything a generative AI tool drafted.
• Recommendations. Two or three, from professors who can describe your work in detail; a judge or employer letter is valuable if specific. Generic letters hurt. Recommenders upload directly to OSCAR, so ask by April.
• Grades, journal and the rest. Circuit judges and the busiest district judges generally hire from the top of the class at the top schools; magistrate, bankruptcy and many district judges hire more broadly and weigh writing and fit more heavily.

I read the writing sample first. If it is good, I read the rest. If it is not, nothing else in the file will save it.

A district judge, to The Counsel

The interview

Interviews range from twenty minutes with the judge to a full day with the judge and current clerks. Expect questions about the writing sample, about a recent decision of the court, about why this court and this city, and about what you would do with a case the clerks describe. The clerks' assessment often decides. The custom that matters most: an offer from a judge is expected to be accepted on the spot, and accepting it ends your search — withdrawing later is a breach that follows you. Decide before you walk in whether you would say yes, and do not interview with a judge whose offer you would decline.

Things the handouts omit

1. Off-plan is not a loophole; it is half the market. Ask your clerkship office for the list of judges who hired 1Ls and 2Ls last year, and apply to them when they hire, not in June.
2. Alumni clerkships are the norm in some chambers. Judges increasingly prefer clerks with a year or two of practice; a clerkship at 27 is not a failure to get one at 25.
3. Geography is leverage. Judges in Boise, Shreveport and Scranton read every application; judges in Manhattan read a fraction. A clerkship is a clerkship on the résumé.
4. Judges talk. A recommender's call to a judge they know is worth more than the letter; ask your professors whom they know.
5. Some judges have announced that they will not hire from particular schools, in disputes over campus events in recent years; the lists are public and change, and your clerkship office tracks them.
6. The pay is modest and the bonus is not. Clerks earn roughly $75,000 to $100,000; firms pay $50,000 to $150,000 in clerkship bonuses on arrival.

After the clerkship

Clerks go everywhere: to firms, where the bonus and the credential wait; to the Justice Department and United States Attorneys' offices, which recruit heavily from chambers; to public defenders and public interest organizations; to academia, where a clerkship is close to required; and, for a few dozen appellate clerks a year, to the Supreme Court. The common thread is a year spent reading the other side's brief as the judge reads it, which is the thing no other job teaches.

The Counsel will publish the plan's dates for the next cycle when OSCAR announces them. Students should talk to their clerkship office in the first year; the offices know which judges hire when, and that knowledge is the whole game.

This guide is for general information only. Hiring plan dates, judges' participation and salary figures change annually; confirm current details on OSCAR and with your law school's clerkship office.