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First Circuit Clerkship Applications Accepted September 6

By Robyn Hagan Cain on August 09, 2011 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Want to spend your first year out of law school clerking for the First Circuit Court of Appeals? You're in luck: we have all the details for the Federal Judges Law Clerk Hiring Plan.

With judges covering cities ranging from cold, (Boston and Providence) to tropical, (San Juan, Puerto Rico), the First Circuit Court of Appeals is one of the three geographic grab bags among the circuits. (If you guessed that the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits were the other two, give yourself a gold star.)

If you're interested in a federal clerkship, start assembling your application; the clerkship application period opens in September. Judging from the fact that the hiring plan states three times that no applications or materials should be submitted to the circuit before September 6, 2011, we suspect they mean it.

More specifically, the hiring plan repeatedly refers to "the day after Labor Day" as the critical date when applicants should try to schedule their materials to arrive. Judges can start contacting applicants to schedule interviews three days later on September 9, and you could be interviewing for your future job as soon as September 15. If you really impress a judge, you could have an on the spot job offer.

Keep in mind that judges may be making offers before they conclude all of their scheduled interviews; so if given an option, take the earliest interview possible.

Some judges accept electronic applications, while others are committed to paper, so check out the Online System for Clerkship Application and Review, (OSCAR), to find out where your judge stands on the paper vs. e-application issue.

In case you're wondering how to ensure that paper application materials are delivered on the day after Labor Day, we have you covered. Your best bet is to use an overnight delivery service, (like FedEx Overnight, UPS Next Day Air, or USPS Express Mail), which will give you a precise delivery date.

If you send your federal clerkship application on the Friday before Labor Day via an overnight service with signature confirmation, the carrier will deliver your application on the next business day, which would be the day after Labor Day.

So gather your cover letters, resumes, recommendations, transcripts, and writing samples, and get ready to rumble; you have less than one month until the madness begins.

Good luck, and don't forget who told you how to navigate the postal system when you're basking in the glory of your federal clerkship with the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

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