What is a judicial clerkship? The job of a judge's law clerk

The judicial clerkship is the court-side version of the law clerk title — in general terms, a legal researcher and writer whose work goes to a judge rather than to a firm's attorneys.

BLS frames the term itself as the point: clerkships are "typically a specified length of time, such as 1- or 2-year terms" that "help law school graduates develop skills required for a legal career."

Beyond that frame, our research did not confirm a task-by-task description of the clerk's daily work: the sources this page cites give the term, the skill development and the hiring rules, not a duties list.

So take task-level detail from two places — the court's own posting for the chambers you are considering, and the general description of the law clerk title, which the linked article covers for the role overall.

The term clerk is the model BLS describes: a clerkship that is "typically a specified length of time, such as 1- or 2-year terms," taken by some graduates before they begin working as a lawyer.

The appointment has a fixed start and end, the clerk serves through that window, and the position ends with the term.

Because each term ends, chambers hiring on this model recruit again for the next cycle — one reason clerkship applications are timed to law-school class years, a pattern the federal hiring plan below turns into exact dates.

The title "career law clerk" also exists.

Our research did not confirm how career-clerk appointments work — what they involve, how courts hire for them, or how they differ from a term in practice.

So the term model above is the description this page can source, and anything about career positions should come from the court's own hiring information.

What our sources document in detail is the federal track.

OSCAR is the federal judiciary's online system where clerkship and staff attorney positions are posted — with weekly new-position updates — and where applicants apply.

Federal student hiring runs on a published Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan, whose dates judges work to: the plan covers students who have two full years of grades, and its dates do not apply to law graduates, whom judges may hire on their own schedule.

State courts are a different record.

Our research did not confirm how state-court clerkship hiring works — which courts hire, on what calendars, or through which posting systems — and neither OSCAR nor the federal plan covers them.

A state clerkship applicant therefore has no shared national timetable to work from: the court's own hiring information is the place to check.

The term is short; the record it leaves is not.

BLS's own framing ties the term to skill development — clerkships help law school graduates develop the skills required for a legal career.

The entry-level numbers say the term is a real option.

NALP's Class of 2025 employment findings put judicial clerkships at 10.0% of all jobs obtained by the Class of 2025, inside a 31.0% public-service total that also counted government work (12.0%) and public-interest jobs (9.0%) — a public-service share down from 32.7% for the Class of 2024.

On pay, NALP measured the Class of 2025 median starting salary for judicial clerkships at $72,533.

Bonuses are a separate figure from a separate survey.

NALP's 2025 associate salary survey — a survey of law offices rather than courts — found that 73% of law offices offered judicial clerkship bonuses, with amounts varying by the type of clerkship.

The data we cite give the share and the variation, not a dollar figure, so treat any single bonus number you encounter elsewhere as unverified until you confirm it at the source.

One concrete, timing-based payoff sits in federal hiring: the Department of Justice's Honors Program limits eligibility to graduating law students and recent graduates who entered a judicial clerkship, a graduate law program or a qualifying legal fellowship within 9 months of law school graduation, alongside additional eligibility requirements.

Entering a clerkship within that window is what keeps a recent graduate inside the program's eligible group — an example of a fixed term sitting directly on the path to what follows it.

For federal chambers, the judges do the hiring: the hiring plan has judges accepting applications and making offers themselves, on the plan's schedule for students — or on their own schedule for graduates.

So the application starts from the courts you are targeting: read each court's hiring information, and build it around demonstrated research and writing.

Recommendations from people who can speak to your research and writing are worth gathering early, and your law school's clerkship advising office can pressure-test the package before it goes out.

Federal clerkship positions are posted on OSCAR, the federal judiciary's online system, and applicants apply through it.

Timing for students follows the Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan.

For the Class of 2027, the plan set noon EDT Monday, June 8, 2026 as the earliest judges accept applications, and noon EDT Wednesday, June 10, 2026 as the earliest date for interviews and offers, with any offer kept open for at least 24 hours — a window that has since passed.

For the Class of 2028 — students who entered law school in 2025 — the plan's dates are noon EDT Monday, June 14, 2027 for applications, and noon EDT Tuesday, June 15, 2027 for contacts, interviews and offers.

The plan covers students with two full years of grades; law graduates are hired on judges' own schedules, outside those dates.

The calendar above is the federal student track only.

For everything the plan does not cover — law graduates, whom judges hire on their own schedules, plus state courts and any career positions — the hiring information of each court you target, checked directly, is the source that matters.

Open law clerk positions — firm clerk roles and judicial postings as employers list them — are collected on our law clerk jobs page.

For federal chambers work specifically, OSCAR is where clerkship and staff attorney positions are posted, with weekly new-position updates.

The judicial version of the job is a measurable workforce of its own: BLS's OEWS data for May 2025 counted 13,290 employed judicial law clerks (SOC 23-1012) nationally, with a median annual wage of $64,920 — wage data that exclude self-employed workers.

That OEWS figure is a different series from the NALP numbers above: OEWS surveys the occupation's wages across the job, while the NALP figures are starting salaries for one law-school class.

One adjacent use of the title to know about: a separate federal appointment — the "law clerk trainee" appointment under 5 CFR 213.3102(e), which is not a judicial clerkship — is confined to graduates of recognized law schools, or persons with equivalent experience, pending admission to the bar, and may not exceed 14 months.

Career information, not legal advice. Clerkship hiring practices and dates come from each court and the federal judiciary's published hiring plan — confirm current details with the court, or the system you are applying through, before you rely on them.