Questions to Ask Judges
Questions for law students, clerkship applicants and anyone weighing a judicial career, asked of the judges who do the hiring. They cover what a clerk actually does, what an application has to show, what the year is like from inside chambers, and how people reach the bench. For a general conversation about the work rather than the career, see the questions to ask a judge.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What do you look for when you read a clerkship application?
Why ask it
Judges weigh grades, writing, recommendations and fit very differently from one another, and most will tell you plainly which matters to them. Ask what they read first, because that is where your application lives or dies.
What does a clerk in your chambers actually do, week to week?
Why ask it
Bench memos, research, drafting, cite checking and courtroom time are mixed in wildly different proportions between trial and appellate chambers. Ask for last week rather than a description of the role.
How many clerks do you have, and how do you divide work between them?
Why ask it
A single clerk sees everything and a chambers of four specialises, and the two years teach different things. Ask whether cases are assigned by subject, by rotation, or by whoever is free.
How much writing does a clerk do, and how much of it survives into the final opinion?
Why ask it
The honest range runs from heavy drafting to research memos that a judge writes from. Neither answer is wrong, but you should know which one you are applying for.
What makes you stop reading an application partway through?
Why ask it
Judges see far more applications than they can interview, and the filters are usually specific and unglamorous: a typo in the cover letter, a writing sample that was heavily edited by someone else, an obvious mail merge. Ask and then go and check yours.
Whose recommendation letters actually carry weight with you?
Why ask it
A letter from someone the judge knows and trusts is worth more than a famous name who barely taught you, and judges will say so. Ask what a useful letter contains, so you can tell your recommenders.
What do you ask in a clerkship interview, and what are you listening for?
Why ask it
Many clerkship interviews are conversational rather than technical, and candidates over-prepare for the wrong thing. Ask what a bad interview looks like, which is usually more instructive.
Do you prefer clerks straight out of school or with a few years in practice?
Why ask it
Preferences differ sharply and are rarely published. If they favour practice experience, that changes when you should apply rather than whether.
What do first-year clerks find hardest?
Why ask it
The common answers are the volume of reading, the shift from arguing a side to weighing both, and the isolation of the work. Knowing which applies in this chambers tells you what the year would ask of you.
What did you have to teach your last clerk that law school had not?
Why ask it
This gets at the gap between academic and judicial writing, which is the single biggest adjustment most clerks describe. Ask whether there is anything you could practise before starting.
How do you handle it when a clerk thinks you have a case wrong?
Why ask it
The answer tells you whether chambers is a place where you argue or a place where you draft, and both exist. Ask for the last time a clerk changed their mind for them.
What are the confidentiality rules a clerk lives under, in practice?
Why ask it
The formal rules are strict and they outlast the clerkship, which surprises people who expect to talk about the work afterwards. Ask what a clerk can and cannot say about the year even a decade later.
What have your former clerks gone on to do?
Why ask it
This is the closest thing to an outcomes record for a clerkship, and judges keep track of their alumni. Ask whether they stay in touch and whether the network is a real one.
How does clerking change the way someone practises afterwards?
Why ask it
Judges are well placed to see this in the lawyers who appear before them, and the answer is usually specific: how a brief is structured, what an argument leads with, what is left out.
What should someone read or work on before a clerkship starts?
Why ask it
Local rules, the standards of review, and the court's own recent opinions come up most often. Ask if there is anything they wish arriving clerks already knew.
How did you come to the bench, and what did that process involve?
Why ask it
Appointment and election processes are opaque from outside and vary by jurisdiction. Ask what the years immediately before it looked like, since that is the part a student can plan for.
What did you have to unlearn from practising as a lawyer?
Why ask it
Advocacy habits are hard to drop, and judges are candid about which ones took longest. It is the most useful answer in this list for anyone who wants the job one day.
What surprised you in your first year on the bench?
Why ask it
The volume of administrative work, the loneliness of decision-making and the pace of a calendar are common answers. Each one is a part of the job that no career guide describes.
What should someone weigh before aiming at a judicial career?
Why ask it
Pay, the pace, the public scrutiny and the loss of practice variety all come up, and judges do not usually sugar-coat them. Ask what they gave up to take the job.
If someone will not clerk, what else gives comparable training?
Why ask it
Staff attorney roles, appellate practice groups, prosecutors' and public defenders' offices and agency work all come up. A judge can tell you which of them produce the lawyers who write well.
Asking a judge about clerking
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
What a judge cannot discuss
- Never raise a case that is pending or could come before them. Judges are barred from discussing live matters outside court, and even an innocent question can create a problem they then have to disclose.
- If you are a party, a witness, or a relative of either in any matter, say so before the conversation starts. One-sided contact about a case is a serious issue for the judge, not just an awkward moment for you.
- Expect judges to decline questions about their political views, other judges' decisions, and anything that would look like prejudging a future case.
- Take a refusal at face value and move on. Pressing is the fastest way to end the conversation.
Preparing to ask about a clerkship
- Learn what court they sit in and what it actually handles. Trial and appellate clerkships are different jobs, and generic questions land badly.
- Read one of their opinions properly and be ready to say something specific about it. This is the clearest signal that you did the work.
- Know the application timetable in that jurisdiction before you ask, so you are not using the conversation on something published online.
- Ask about the chambers rather than about your own chances. Judges answer the first freely and deflect the second.
- Bring fewer questions than you think you need. Two good ones and honest follow-ups beat a list read aloud.
During the conversation
Ask about method, not verdicts
How a judge prepares, reads a record, or structures reasons is discussable and instructive. How they would decide a given scenario usually is not.
Let silences sit
Judges are used to being the one who waits. Pauses often mean they are choosing words carefully rather than that the question failed.
Note what they say about advocates
If you may ever appear in court, the answers about effective and ineffective advocacy are the most immediately useful thing you will get. Write them down verbatim.