A judicial clerkship cover letter is a short, formal letter — one page, three or four paragraphs — built to answer three questions for the chambers reading it: can this applicant write, has this applicant learned something about this chambers, and does the record behind the letter support the ask.
This page gives you the format that fits on that page, an annotated example, and how to choose the writing sample and adjust the resume that travel with it.
What judges want from a judicial clerkship cover letter
Read the draft the way its reader will.
The cover letter is the one document in the file written for this reader alone — so it is read twice: once for what it argues, and once as evidence of how you write when nobody is editing you.
That sets the bar for the writing: plain, precise, error-free, with every claim about your record checkable against the attachments behind it.
It also sets the bar for the argument: specific beats admiring.
One sentence about an opinion of the judge's you have actually read, or the kind of question the court decides, says more than a paragraph of praise that could travel to any chambers.
And it sets the bar for the homework.
The reader should finish the letter knowing why you wrote to this chambers and not another one — which is also the paragraph that cannot be templated.
Writing it well is a craft of its own, and our guide to tailoring a judicial clerkship cover letter to the judge works through it line by line.
One boundary before the format: this page is the letter to a judge's chambers.
A letter to a law firm — for an associate position or a firm clerkship — is a different document for a different reader, and our attorney cover letter guide covers that one.
The format of a judicial clerkship cover letter
The letter is a formal business letter, and a short one: a single page in four blocks.
- Header — your name and contact details, then the date.
- Inside address — "The Honorable [Full Name]", the court's name, the court's address, plus a Re: line naming the clerkship and the term so the letter sorts at a glance in a stack of PDFs.
- Salutation — "Dear Judge [Last name]:"
- Body and close — three or four short paragraphs, then a formal close and your signature.
Keep the body to three paragraphs.
The first says who you are and what you are applying for, in two sentences.
The second is the chambers paragraph — the reason you are writing to this judge — written fresh for every application.
The third carries your evidence: what in your record shows you can do the work, and a line naming what is attached.
Where a federal chambers takes applications through OSCAR — the federal judiciary's online system, where clerkship and staff attorney positions are posted, with weekly new-position updates, and applicants apply — use the posting for the judge's name and title, the court and any attachments it lists.
Build the letter's blocks from the posting rather than from a directory, and follow the posting's instructions wherever they differ from a general template.
For students, the letter also has an earliest date it can be accepted.
Under the Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan, Class of 2028 applications open at noon EDT on Monday, June 14, 2027, and contacts, interviews and offers open at noon EDT on Tuesday, June 15, 2027.
The Class of 2027 window, which opened at noon EDT on Monday, June 8, 2026, has already passed; under that version of the plan, any offer had to stay open for at least 24 hours.
The plan covers students with two full years of grades, and its dates do not apply to law graduates, whom judges may hire on their own schedule.
The plan's calendar, class by class, is in our guide to how to get a clerkship.
Hiring-plan dates are versioned
Judicial clerkship cover letter example (annotated)
The letter below shows the short format filled in.
The brackets are placeholders — every one should be replaced with something true of you — and the notes in italics say what each part is doing.
[Your Name]
[Street Address] · [City, State ZIP] · [Email] · [Phone]
[Date]
The Honorable [Full Name]
[Name of the Court]
[Court Address]
Re: Application for a judicial clerkship, [Term] term
Dear Judge [Last Name]:
I am a [third-year] student at [Law School], and I am writing to apply for a clerkship in your chambers for the [Term] term.
The opening does one job: identity, school, and the specific ask. Nothing else earns space here.
[The chambers paragraph, written for this judge alone: the opinion of theirs you have actually read and what it showed you, or the kind of question this court decides that you want to spend a year inside of.]
This is the paragraph the letter exists for — write it from your own reading, not from a template.
My record is built around research and writing: as [a comments editor] of [Law Journal] I [edited and cite-checked] [note subject], my [moot court brief] for [competition] earned [a best-brief award], and last summer I [drafted bench memos] for [Court] as a [judicial intern].
The evidence paragraph: two or three checkable items, each of which the resume and the attachments confirm.
My resume, transcript and references are attached, and my [note on Subject] — the writing sample — addresses the kind of question your chambers decides.
I would welcome the opportunity to interview at your convenience.
Respectfully,
[Your Name]
The close names the attachments and invites the next step. If the posting asks for a different attachment list, the posting wins.
Three things make the example short rather than thin.
The opening spends no words on the general value of clerkships.
The evidence paragraph names checkable items instead of adjectives, so the resume confirms it in seconds.
And the whole letter is built to set up the attachments, not to replace them — a reader who wants more knows exactly where to look.
Adapt it honestly: a placeholder you cannot fill with something true is a line to cut, not a line to invent.
Writing sample and resume for a judicial clerkship application
The writing sample is the attachment the letter argues toward.
Pick one piece of your strongest analytical writing — a journal note, a brief, a bench memo, a seminar paper — and send the version you can defend line by line when the conversation turns to it.
Where the posting names a length or a type, the posting wins.
And where your record includes a piece close to the questions the court actually decides, that is the piece that argues hardest for you.
The mechanics around the piece — excerpting a long document, permission to use supervising work, redaction, the cover sheet — are the same for a chambers application as for a firm one, and our legal writing sample guide covers them in detail.
Adjust the resume for the same reader.
Lead with the research-and-writing record the letter cites — journal, moot court, clinic work, research assistantships, any judicial or chambers internship — so the letter's claims are confirmed on the first page the reader sees, and keep every date and title identical to the letter's.
A resume tuned for law firm applications leads with different evidence; our attorney resume guide covers that version, and a clerkship application is the reason to retune it rather than reuse it.
Career information, not legal advice. Hiring-plan dates are the federal judiciary's to set and change — confirm current dates on OSCAR before you build an application calendar around them.