The All-Inclusive Guide to Judicial Clerking (Career Guides)

The All-Inclusive Guide to Judicial Clerking (“Guide”) is a comprehensive new resource that is ideal for current and prospective law clerks as well as law professors who teach judicial drafting courses or direct judicial externship programs. The book’s author―Professor Abigail Perdue – is a former attorney and federal judicial clerk who now teaches Judicial Clerking and other courses at Wake Forest University School of Law. She also directs Wake Forest’s prestigious D.C. Summer Judicial Externship Program. Based on Professor Perdue’s experience in clerking and teaching, the Guide enables students to put their knowledge into practice via accessible reading assignments, effective exercises and simulations, and a series of short legal writing assignments. A one-stop shop for current and prospective judicial clerks, the Guide explores the purpose and function of a judicial clerk, the nature and structure of the judiciary, how to apply for and obtain a clerkship, and more importantly, how to perform well during and after the clerkship. Among other things, it explains how to draft opinions, bench memos, professional emails, and orders as well as how to prepare for oral argument, hearings, and trials. It also discusses judicial ethics, professionalism, confidentiality, social media, courtroom decorum, judicial drafting, docket management, and other issues that judicial clerks commonly encounter. The Guide breaks down complex assignments, such as bench memo drafting, into a series of simple, concrete steps and provides checklists, graphical illustrations, annotated judicial opinions, and sample emails, cover letters, resumes, bench memos, etc. The Guide even shares practical, real-world advice gleaned from judicial law clerks who have served at courts across America. Look for it on shelves in the spring of 2017!