If anyone wishes to discuss grades or rankings, feel free to do so on this open thread. While I think it's great that Boalt (ahem... Berkeley Law) has a (relatively) non-competitive atmosphere and am extremely grateful that students here tend not to be overly grade obsessed, curiosity sometimes gets the better of us. Additionally, some folks might find it helpful (or at least stress/anxiety-reducing) to complain about their lack of grades or discuss GPA/class rank for clerkship purposes. Feel free to do so here (in a civil manner, of course).
I wonder if the delay in grades (and Dean O's absence) will affect the timing of class rank disclosure. It's important for 3Ls applying to clerkships (as well as recent grads) to get their class rank relatively soon, especially since more and more judges are not adhering to the hiring plan (many 10th Circuit judges and some 9th Circuit judges in particular), so there may be an advantage to sending out early applications (be careful, though -- while some judges don't follow the plan, others adhere to it very strictly for current students, and an early application will not be viewed favorably). Check out the Clerkship Notification Blog for news on judge hiring, and also So You Want to Be a Law Clerk for info on early-hiring judges, as well as good general clerkship information.
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33 comments:
This is bad for Boalt. It also looks damn close to an invitation to violate the honor code.
If you want to go to a school where people are worried about and whine about grades, transfer to Columbia.
Thanks Learned Hand!
If people want to discuss grades, why not let them? What's the point of hiding or censoring this information? How does it hurt you?
I, for one, am glad that there's a blog that will let people discuss what they want to discuss, without censoring them.
And if you were applying for clerkships (or fellowships, academic positions, etc.) you'd be worrying about grades too.
6:46 = Armen
Good thread. Do any future/current/former clerks want to share what credentials are competitive for various clerkships?
Yes, any guidance would be appreciated! So whats the top 10% cut-off for class of 2009?
how does it change from year to year? I would image that the IL curve is a bit lower because the curve is stricter (40%Hs w. 10%HH for 1L 45% w/ 15%HH after)
also, 12:43, 2Ls and 3Ls can take more seminars with easier curves, as well as independent study credits with no curve.
y'all a bunch of tools.
At least we can form a coherent sentence.
I would urge any Boalties interested in clerking on the 10th, 5th, or 4th Circuit to see if there are judges hiring current students. There are some judges that do so (most of the judges on the 10th circuit, a lot on the 5th (e.g. J. Smith), some on the 4th (E.g. M. Michael, Wilkinson), and even some on the 9th, like Kleinfeld, Kozinski).
I'm shocked, SHOCKED to find that there is a discussion about grades going on here.
You'll notice that nobody is taking the bait and actually posting grade data. That's probably because, for the most part, it's not as important as you think it is. I'm an alum who got both a district court and appellate clerkship without truly stellar grades. I wasn't overly concerned about what the stupid cutoff was between percentile classes. Just send your data when you think it's appropriate. If you bump up, you can convey that later on. If you downgrade into a worse percentile (as I did), find some unobtrusive way to communicate that. But by 3L year, you're unlikely to have big swings in your ranking, and a 5% or 10% movement isn't going to make you a fundamentally different candidate.
So chill out and stop bitching about how Armen is trying to squelch a non-existent, largely irrelevant, and perhaps unethical discussion.
You came here just to post that, 6:34? Get a life.
The fact is that some people care about grades, and others don't. There is nothing unethical about discussing them. You may find it in bad taste, but don't confuse your personal predictions with ethics.
And while it's great that you got a clerkship, not everyone had as much luck. In the past few years few people outside the top 10% had success obtaining a clerkship, unless they had a substantial connection (i.e. their recommender was best friends with a judge and called them on the students behalf).
Don't waste your time comparing your grades and class ranks. If you want to help yourself, start demanding Boalt change its system. Until Boalt changes the way it reports class rank, judges are going to continue sorting on OSCAR by class rank and Boalties in the top 15% won't get looked at while students in the top 30% at a school that reports as "Does not rank" will get a click on their file and the clerks/secretary will have to either manually compute a GPA or compare it to the other grades from that school to try to estimate that student's rank.
Oh, and a lot of judges dislike hiring tools and check into people accordingly. So make sure that if you are chumping up your competitiveness on here that your friends and profs don't know that aspect of your personality.
--A current clerk
Okay, don't want to let my disdain for this thread spill into needless fear for people just trying to be informed. I threw out the 15% and 30% numbers just to use numbers. Boalties in the top 15% and below get clerkships every year and definitely shouldn't take my post as anything other than a recommendation to pursue structural change.
--11:55
11:55 - can you throw out what type of credentials are competitive for a clerkship, in your experience? Also, does less "screening" occur of graduated applicants who are applying over the summer, or will chambers still filter OSCAR applicants based on numbers? Thanks!
Email from Mindi:
"We still have a few courses with missing grades (Eisenberg, Talley, Kell, Caron, Fernholz, Bundy), but all of those should be on bearfacts
within a day or two.
A few professors were unable to submit grades online but those grades will show up on your transcript in July.
If you are missing a grade from one of the following courses, you can
email me for your grade:
Labor Law (Winograd)
Labor and Employ Arbitration (Winograd)
Employment Law (True)
Crim Pro (Parker)
Investment Treaties (Dalhuisen)
Modern Fin Products (Dalhuisen)
Estates and Trusts (Hartog)
Class Action (McGovern)
3.59 = top 10%
which year are ya, 8:22? I'm class of '08, was 3.55 last semester = top 15%
2008- looks like you are close!
sorry, meant 2009. didn't mean to get your hopes up.
12:20--grads get a boost in that judges who aspire to following the "plan" will look at grad apps as they come in, as opposed to 3Ls, whose apps must wait until the plan dates dictate. NOT all judges follow the plan, so the boost overall may be minimal. I would guess that grads' apps would be sorted too. From the apps I've seen, I'd say upwards of 90% of people who apply would be excellent candidates, so there has to be a way to sort 500 applications down to a manageable number, and unfortunately the "sort by rank" button is very attractive. Again, see my plea to get Boalt to stop releasing our candidates' rank. Having a system like Armen proposed where the top students get to call themselves Earl Warren Scholars or what not would be much better--top students would still be able to distinguish themselves, but you'd have to click on their application to see it. Top students would still get a (deserved) boost, while non-top students would still have an opportunity to catch the viewer's eye with something else interesting/impressive on their resume.
As far as what makes you competitive...common sense, my friend, common sense plus recognize that every judge will be looking for slightly different things, so generalizations beyond the obvious are meaningless. There's tons of general info available--see the link above to the clerkship notification blog. Find a friend who is clerking/has clerked (the CDO's clerkship guide has a list of us--you must recognize some name) and just call or email. Even if you have to cold call/email, I think most Boalties would be happy to help other Boalties out. I would be. That networking and alumni contact/resources is part of why other schools slam us every year.
10:39 is right - feel free to email people on the CDO's list, even if you don't know them. Everyone on the list explicitly agreed to have their information listed so they could be contacted.
Does anybody have any experience apply to judges who don't adhere to the hiring timeline? Specifically, I'm wondering about letters of recommendation. Do you just send them later or do you hound your professors to get them done over the summer?
Does anyone know if/where you can look at your graded exam?
You definitely can look at your graded exam. I know that sometimes professors hand them over to student services and you check them out from them, but I doubt that's occurring over the summer. Contact your prof and ask to see the exam.
On that topic of getting your graded exam-- in what situations would you want to view it, like if you want to contest a grade? Do professors really leave enough comments to help you tailor your exam-writing skills?
Some profs mark up exams with comments, or at least cross stuff out that's wrong.
I'd like to repeat the comment by June 25, 2008 10:14 AM...anybody have any advice on what to do re. letters of rec (and class rank) if you have neither and are considering applying for a clerkship with a judge who doesn't follow the plan?
If the judge isn't following the plan, I'd suggest going ahead and submitting your applications, while noting on your cover letter that you will provide class rank and LORs when they become available.
In many cases, judges who don't follow the plan have certain professors at certain schools that they'll ask to send them good candidates. The clerkship/judge/professor world is very small and there is a lot of communication going back and forth that you'd never hear about. Otherwise, just send your paperwork along with the notation that you'll send letters and class rank when it's available.
I'll third the previous two comments. Last year I remember seeing somewhere that a judge who wasn't following the plan said to send everything you have now and mention that LOR will be coming.
To 6/25 9:38: If you don't have a clue why you keep getting P's, you might want to look at your exam. Challenging grades is lame. The likelihood that you will jump from P to H, or H to HH, is essentially nil. Unless you actually see an error of addition, take the grade you received and work harder next time.
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