The Hiring Plan: what it is, and why is it imploding.

Just a few years ago, a group of federal judges introduced the law clerk hiring plan.  This proposal -- commonly referred to as the "hiring plan," or just "the plan" -- set standardized dates for clerkship applications, interviews, and hiring.  It was designed to bring order to what had become absolute chaos.  Prior to the plan, many judges were hiring clerks as early as their 1L summer -- well before applicants had built up a meaningful law school record.  Many judges felt they had to do this, lest their competitors snatch up all the best talent.  That impulse drove hiring to occur earlier and earlier in a vicious cycle.

The plan is, and always was voluntary for all involved.  By its own terms, it applies only to law students applying to clerk the year after graduation.  Alumni are not covered.  Nor are students applying to clerk in a year other than the year after graduation.  Most law schools, and many federal judges, opted in when the plan was first announced.

Initially, a small number of judges declined to follow the plan.  Some of these judges decided the plan put them at a disadvantage -- for instance by favoring judges in major metropolitan areas, or on the coasts.  Others simply rejected the notion that they should be constrained in their hiring practices.  These "off-plan" judges put applicants in a bind.  On the one hand, law schools were telling their students not to apply off-plan (enforcing the rule by withholding letters of recommendation).  On the other hand, the off-plan judges were still somehow finding 2Ls to hire.  

What started out as a trickle has now become a torrent.  (more after the jump)

Read more »