Considering a Clerkship or Staff Attorney Position with the Federal Courts?
If you are a law student or practicing attorney considering a federal clerkship or working as a staff attorney in the federal appellate courts you should get to know OSCAR. No not that adorable grouch from Sesame Street, but the federal Judiciary’s online system for clerkship application and review.
Who is using OSCAR?
OSCAR has recently celebrated its sixth birthday and in 2010 was used by 1,501 federal judges (= 2/3 of all federal judges) to handle their clerkship application process. The system allows judges to post open positions and choose to accept applications online or paper applications. By 2010, 82% of judges were accepting online applications.
In 2010, 50% of the applicants were 3Ls and 50% were law school alumni. This was a slight deviation from 2009, when 52% of the 10,722 applicants were alumni.
Another change in 2010 was the system’s expansion to allow staff attorney office’s in the federal appellate courts to post open positions.
The staff attorney module was introduced last May, and 10 positions were posted between that month and the end of September. The positions posted by staff attorney offices accepting online applications attracted 2,598 applications.
What does the future hold for OSCAR?
The OSCAR Working Group has “endorsed a proposal to add a module for pro se, death penalty, and bankruptcy appellate panel law clerk hiring.”
