Conservative Judges’ Early Hiring Fuels Two-Track Clerkship System at Harvard Law

Federal judges — particularly those aligned with the conservative legal movement — are increasingly recruiting Harvard Law School students during their first year, accelerating a clerkship hiring process that has traditionally taken place much later in law school.

While most judges continue to follow the “on-plan” timeline, where applications open during the summer after students’ second year, a growing number — disproportionately conservative and often affiliated with the conservative Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies — are hiring months earlier through informal networks.

The shift is a sign of a dual system of clerkship hiring at HLS: one track that is formal, application-based, and largely followed by students applying to work with liberal judges, and another that is earlier, network-driven, and dominated by conservative pipelines.

“The process is bifurcated, and you have a Fed Soc pipeline and a non-Fed Soc pipeline, and the two pipelines are on very different timelines,” HLS student Calvin M. Nickelson said. “The Fed Soc pipeline seems like — what I’ve heard is that it’s very centralized in terms of the control there.”

Under the traditional system, students generally apply after two years of law school grades, often submitting dozens or even hundreds of applications. HLS third-year student Benjamin Kaufman, who applied on-plan, said he submitted applications to more than 100 judges, received a single interview, and ultimately secured a clerkship.

“If you are not someone who is working within what I understand to be the conservative pipelines for clerkships and who doesn’t have — or who isn’t in a situation where they have professors who can guide them toward judges that they might know or might be in contact with, you are just throwing stuff to the wall,” Kaufman said.

By contrast, some students are securing clerkships far earlier.

“My understanding is that there were students in my section who, through Fed Soc, had clerkships lined up the fall of 1L,” Kaufman said. “There is no liberal student for whom that’s the case.”

A HLS spokesperson declined to comment on the earlier recruiting timeline.

Mason R. Laney, an HLS student and Federalist Society member, said some judges begin hiring after just one semester of grades, while others have maintained the later timeline that has been traditionally used.

“It does appear to be the case that they’re pushing up, because it’s just competition. It’s a race to the bottom,” Laney said. “To get to these people early, you have to do that.”

Students said the earlier hiring is sustained by informal networks connecting students to judges, professors within the same ideological circles, and current clerks who can identify candidates before applications formally open.

“We vet each other, because we know each other very well,” Laney said.

“Students end up with a lot of power, where judges will reach out, and they’ll say, ‘Is this person somebody we should reach out to?’” he added.

Those recommendations can shape hiring decisions well before the timeline begins.

“Students around will say, ‘Hey, they’re solid, conservative, they’re very much in Fed Soc,’” Laney said.

Several students said the strength of the conservative pipeline is reinforced by a mismatch between supply and demand, with fewer conservative law students at elite schools than conservative-appointed judges seeking clerks.

“It’s not difficult at least for Harvard students who are Fed Soc, true Fed Soc, true conservative,” Laney said. “There’s a surplus of judges, and these are great quality students. So they’ve got a great shot among them.”

Even as hiring timelines have shifted, the total number of HLS students securing clerkships has increased in recent years. Placements rose from 266 students in the 2020 judicial term to 308 in 2024. While only 86 students in the Class of 2023 clerked immediately after graduation, that number rose to 133 for the Class of 2024 and 118 for the Class of 2025.

For students applying through the traditional process, the experience can be far less predictable.

Kaufman said the process can feel opaque, with little visibility into how judges select candidates or when positions are filled.

“The application process was a little mystical,” Kaufman said.

Nickelson said the earlier timeline adds pressure for students navigating their first year of law school.

“It’s very stressful to be trying to recruit as a 1L,” Nickelson said. “The fact that you’re trying to get into your clerkship, which you’ll have in three years, and it feels so high stakes seems like a really bad process to me.”

Some students said the divergence in hiring timelines is reinforcing broader ideological differences.

“One of them requires a meritocratic approach and a lot of hard work,” HLS student Jackson S. Faulkner said. “You have to bank on things way later on in the process that are not available to the other side, which is looking for ideological adherence, and then they will train you to be a clerk.”

Others said the divide also reflects students’ own preferences, arguing that many choose to apply only to judges whose legal philosophies align with their own.

“You wouldn’t want to clerk for the judges they’re clerking for,” Kaufman said.

Still, as more judges move off-plan and hire earlier, students said the gap between the two systems has become increasingly visible.

“This happens every couple of years, where some judges start preempting the plan,” Kaufman said. “Each individual judge’s incentive is to deviate.”

—Staff writer Uy B. Pham can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at ubp.88. Follow him on X @uybpham.

—Staff writer Sierra R. Pape can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @SierraRPape.