Legal Ramblings
[ Tuesday, September 21, 2004 (10:48 PM) ] ( link )
Clerkship conclusions: On Sunday night, after eating dinner in Washington D.C.'s Chinatown, I got a fortune cookie fortune that read, "Something wonderful is about to happen to you."
On Monday, three wonderful things happened: (1) I got a free caramel frappuccino from Starbucks when nobody claimed it and I was the last person in line; (2) my number while waiting in Burger King was 626, which is the area code of my hometown; and (3) I accepted an offer to clerk in the chambers of Judge Diana Motz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Baltimore, MD. (She's liberal; the Fourth Circuit is decidedly not.)
The story of how I even got an interview with Judge Motz is pretty weird. But the reason the offer was made (and accepted) is simple: I had a great interview with her clerks, and a fabulous conversation with the judge. That conversation helped persuade her to make me an offer even though I was probably too young and life-inexperienced to warrant a spot; and it persuaded me to accept even though I had already bought a ticket home to California for more interviews.
(Which isn't to say I didn't take the trip home. I'm there now, and hoping to take a short break after all of this clerkship madness.)
I am a little surprised that I ended up in Baltimore, and especially that I ended up in the Fourth Circuit. (I was actually pretty certain I would end up in California, where I grew up.) I guess this just goes to show how idiosyncratic the entire clerkship-hiring process has been: law students act off of incredibly imperfect information in applying for judges; judges act off of inchoate hunches in picking which of many nearly identical students to interview; and every once in a while those two essentially random choices end up with matches that just click. From talking to (a few) people today, it seems to me that surprise has been the order of the day--people come into this process with certain expectations, but, as in my case, those expectations are often (pleasantly) broken.
At any rate, I'm happy with and deeply honored by the opportunity I have next year. If my meeting with the judge and her clerks is any indication, I'm going to have a blast next year. Best of luck to everybody still going through the process.
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