YLS students and alumni accept clerkships at a variety of times. Many students accept one or more clerkships as students and commence those clerkships either immediately after graduation or in some later year. Some of these students will accept a second (or sometimes third) clerkship as alumni. Other students forego the clerkship process as students and wait until after graduation to pursue clerkships. The statistics in this chart reflect:
the percent of graduates who worked as a judicial clerk in their first job after graduation;
the percent of graduates obtaining one or more clerkships at any time;
the total number of clerkships obtained by graduates.
This chart includes information reported to CDO as of October 2021
Class of
Clerkship
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
Percent of Employed Graduates Reporting a Clerkship as First Job after Graduation1
37.3%
40%
28.6%
28.4%
23%
Percent of Graduates Reporting One or More Clerkships at Any Time2
52%
53%
48.4%
48.5%
41.7%
Total Number of Clerkships Obtained by Graduates
174
176
142
147
125
1 Percentages based on total number of employed graduates. 2 Percentages based on total number of graduates.
