A law clerk is a legal researcher and writer who supports a judge or a law firm's attorneys — researching issues, drafting memoranda and helping prepare the court's or the firm's written work.
The title covers three distinct jobs: a law student or pre-admission clerk at a firm, a judicial clerk working for a judge, and a summer associate in a firm's summer program.
Here is what each role does and how the paths differ.
What does a law clerk do day to day?
The law clerk job description is research and writing, in every version of the title.
A judicial clerk reads the filings in the cases on a judge's docket, researches the legal questions those cases raise, and drafts memoranda the judge can rely on when a case is discussed, argued or decided.
Because that written product reaches the judge first, precision matters more than volume.
A firm law clerk runs the same core work on the attorneys' side of it: digging into statutes, cases and secondary sources, drafting research memoranda, cite-checking briefs and helping assemble filings for court.
A summer associate does project-based versions of that work — discrete research and drafting assignments handed over by supervising lawyers, set inside the firm's summer recruiting program.
Across all three settings the through-line is the same.
A law clerk takes an unorganized legal question and returns organized, checked, written analysis that a lawyer or a judge can act on.
The daily duties differ less by title than by who the work is for.
Where do law clerks work and who employs them?
The title lives in two places: courts and law firms.
Judicial clerks work for judges at the trial and appellate levels, in state and federal courts; the employing court is the employer, and the clerk works as part of that judge's staff.
Law firms hire clerks under two names.
A firm law clerk works during the school year, often part time, while a summer associate holds the season-limited version — a structured summer program for law students, built around research assignments and recruiting events.
Both sit under the supervision of the firm's lawyers.
The judicial side is a measurable slice of the new-graduate market.
NALP's Class of 2025 employment findings put judicial clerkships at 10.0% of Class of 2025 jobs, inside a 31.0% public-service total that also included government work (12.0%) and public-interest jobs (9.0%).
So the practical map is one job title with two employer types.
Which door you walk through shapes the work, the hiring process and the pay.
What skills and credentials does a law clerk need?
The non-negotiable skills are legal research and clear writing.
Clerks are handed questions no one has time to answer loosely — what a rule actually says, which cases control, what a filing overlooked — so tight analytical writing, careful reading and accurate citation are the core of the job.
Discretion matters alongside them: a clerk sees confidential strategy inside a firm and pending matters inside a court.
Credentials are a different story, because the role sits below the lawyer line.
BLS describes the lawyer's requirement — a law degree and a state license, which usually requires passing a bar examination — as what practicing attorneys need.
A clerkship carries no license of its own.
Judicial clerkships are graduate positions, terms typically taken by some graduates before working as a lawyer; firm clerk and summer associate roles are built for current law students and for graduates who have not yet been admitted.
A clerkship is a job, not a law license
What does a typical caseload or workload look like?
Judicial clerks carry no caseload of their own; they share the judge's.
Work arrives as the cases on that docket reach a decision point, so the rhythm follows the court's calendar rather than a client's demands.
The term structure shapes the depth of the work: because a clerkship typically runs one or two years, the clerk is there to produce analysis for every matter the judge takes up during that window, and then the position ends.
Firm clerks work the opposite pattern — no docket at all, only the matters the supervising attorneys hand over.
One week can touch several unrelated files.
Summer associates have the least structure of the three: a sequence of discrete assignments, each with a deadline, rather than any ongoing file.
The practical difference is depth versus breadth.
A judicial clerk goes deep on the small number of matters before one judge; a firm clerk and a summer associate go broad across whatever the firm's lawyers are working on.
Neither setting hands a clerk a client file of their own.
How does the role compare with nearby attorney roles?
The three versions of the title sit at different points on the same track, so the cleanest comparison is side by side:
| Role | Who holds it | Where it leads |
|---|---|---|
| Firm law clerk | A law student, or a graduate who has not yet been admitted, working under the firm's lawyers | Hands-on firm experience before graduation and admission |
| Judicial clerk | A law school graduate, typically serving a one- or two-year term | Court-based research and drafting experience before lawyer work begins |
| Summer associate | A law student in a firm's structured summer program | A successful summer may end in an employment offer after graduation |
The line between a clerk and a junior associate is supervision plus licensure.
BLS notes that a successful summer job or internship during law school may result in an employment offer after graduation — the pipeline the summer associate position is designed to feed.
The associate who comes out the other end holds the law degree and the state license BLS describes for lawyers, and carries files of their own.
A clerk, in every version of the title, is still working toward that point — or deliberately stepping out of the market for a fixed term first.
How do you become a law clerk?
Two doors lead into the title.
Firms hire clerks and summer associates directly from law school.
Judicial clerkships are applied for separately, and they are graduate positions — terms typically taken by some graduates before working as a lawyer.
What both doors have in common is what gets you hired: demonstrated research and writing ability.
Build the fundamentals in school
Legal research, close case reading and clear analytical writing are the whole job. Writing-heavy coursework, a journal, moot court or a clinic all build the same record.Apply to firm clerk and summer associate roles while you study
Firms recruit law students into these positions, and your law school's career services office is the usual starting point alongside each firm's own applications.Research judicial clerkships on their own track
Judges and courts run their own hiring, with their own application materials and timing. Check the hiring information for the courts you are interested in directly, and plan the applications around your final year of law school.Keep the license separate
A clerkship does not admit anyone to the bar. If the goal is to practice, run your state's admission process in parallel rather than assuming the clerkship covers it.
The lawyer path itself — law degree, bar examination, admission — is its own subject.
The clerkship routes above plug into it: the firm roles feed it while you study, and the judicial term sits between graduation and lawyer work.
How much do law clerks make?
For the judicial version of the job, NALP's Class of 2025 employment findings put the median starting salary for graduates entering judicial clerkships at $72,533.
In the same survey, the same class's private-practice median starting salary was $155,000, with firm-size medians running from $84,000 at firms of 1–10 lawyers to $225,000 at firms of 500+ lawyers.
Both figures are starting salaries, measured about ten months after graduation, so they describe new graduates entering each setting — not later-career earnings in either one.
The judicial figure is a fixed-term public salary; the firm figures describe the private market that a clerkship year sits alongside.
Where to find law clerk jobs
Open positions are collected on our law clerk jobs page — firm clerk roles and summer associate programs as law firms post them.
If you are on the employer side instead, the same board is where firms list clerk openings for law students and pre-admission graduates.
Career information, not legal advice. Admission requirements and court hiring practices vary by state — confirm current rules with the state's bar admission authority or the court involved.