A while ago, I wrote a song parody called "Curvin' GPA," to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA." You can find it in the search box at the top of the page, I'm sure. If I didn't mind repeating, I'd be tempted to do one this week called "Clerkin' USA," and I still might. Everyone's all over the place with clerkship interviews. Many of my classmates sent out many, many, many applications, and spent last week hearing back from judges... and will spend this week being judged. From what I hear, this week starts the interviews, and students -- on their own dime: this ain't the law firms -- get to travel across the country for 20 minutes in a meet-and-greet so the judge can decide whether you should get the job, or it should go to one of your 500 classmates with a substantially similar resume. And once you're offered one job, you're pretty much bound to take it -- there's no shopping around or waiting for the best offer: if you applied to the judge, it should mean you want to work for the judge, and so when you get an offer, your process is complete and you cancel the rest of your interviews so that spots open up for others. It's a very different process from the law firm stuff.

In a way I feel like I should have applied for a clerkship, because so many people are doing it, and it's prestigious, and it doesn't sound like a terrible way to spend a year, and it follows you wherever you go... but then I realize I'm getting into the law student herd mentality when I think that way. The truth is that, for me, a clerkship probably isn't something that will get me closer to what I want to end up doing with my life, and I feel like it would just buy me another year to postpone real life -- and while not a bad thing necessarily, I just don't feel like it's the right choice. Plus, you have to live wherever the judge does, and I don't know if there are tons of places I want to spend a year living, especially if there's no greater goal the clerkship would be propelling me toward. But if someone knows they're going to a law firm, or, in contrast, knows they're not and wants to do public interest, or teach, or really do pretty much anything else really law-related, clerkships seem like awesome opportunities and I can hardly think of a reason not to try to get one.

I'm rushing through this post a bit because of this wedding I'm at home for -- mostly I'm posting this as a reminder to myself to actually write something real (or funny) about clerkship stuff, probably ending up with the Clerkin' USA song parody. But I can't say too much, because I'm not going through the process myself and don't know how it really is. Maybe I should've applied for a clerkship. See, there I go again.