Prior to Interviewing with a judge, research is key!
Biographical Information:
A good place to start researching the judge and his chambers is the Leadership Connect database. If you are interviewing with a relatively new federal judge, you may want to look up the Senate Judiciary Committee nomination materials, which can be found at http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/nominations/judicial. Never underestimate the power of a Google search. Search for speeches, videos or scholarly articles written by the judge, and any news about the judge. If the judge is overseeing a high profile case you will want to know about it. You will also want to know your judge’s particular career path. Judges won’t be on Linkedin, but their prior clerks may have that job title listed. Search for them so you can be prepared.
Opinions and Dissents/Concurrences
You want to approach the interview with a familiarity regarding how the judge approaches the law and opinion-writing. Speaking with individuals who have clerked for that judge or who have served as judicial clerks in general is a good way to begin preparing, but you will want to spend time reviewing the judge’s opinions and dissents. Depending on the length of the judge’s tenure, you may have countless opinions to review or only a handful. Utilize Lexis and/or Westlaw to pull relevant docs (a step by step example is included below), however, you will likely pull up numerous options and you may have a limited amount of time to read them.
You should check the “Noteworthy Opinions” section in the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary (available on Westlaw -AFJ); not every judge will have a “noteworthy opinion” listed, but it is a good starting place. If you cannot find a case that seems to be particularly notable, you should still review some cases form the most recent term or within the past year. Pick a mixture of criminal and civil. Review them carefully; you should be able to identify which is your favorite and least favorite and be able to discuss why. Steer clear of hot-button political views and gear yourself more towards the legal analysis and less towards the issue.
If you are interviewing with an appellate judge, also review a few of the judge’s dissents and concurrences, as those are often the easiest places to truly hear the judge’s voice, free from the constraints that often come from reaching consensus.
Research the court
Before you go into an interview, you should research the court in addition to the judge. This is particularly important if you are interviewing with a court of limited jurisdiction (Federal Circuit, U.S. Tax Court, Court of Federal Claims, U.S. Court of International Trade, etc.), as you will want to understand the nature and scope of the disputes before the court. But even if you are interviewing with a court of general jurisdiction, it is helpful to know a bit about the court. If it’s an appellate court, is it a court of last resort? Is it appeal by right or by leave? If it’s a trial court, does the judge have a particular docket (criminal, family, civil)? Are the judges elected or appointed? If you’re interviewing with an Administrative Law Judge, you should understand the mission of the department or agency.
Research the Location
If you are interviewing in a location where you do not already have strong ties, make sure you have done some research on the city and area of the country where you would be clerking. Read the newspaper for that location to find what issues are prevalent. Judges want to know you’ll be comfortable living and working in their city, and a good way to reflect your genuine interest is to know what’s going on in that community. You don’t have to convince your judge that Las Cruces, New Mexico or whatever city you are interviewing in, is your dream location, but that you are aware of what life will be like in that city so you can genuinely convey why you would love to live there.
Nuts & Bolts of Research – Examples
Searching in Bloomberg Law for Judge Kim Gibson, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania:
- Type Judge’s name into the main search bar on Bloomberg Law. Click on the “People” result for him.
- That brings you to this page: https://www.bloomberglaw.com/people/5947375, which provides the following:
- Basic biographical information;
- Reported holdings (Judge Gibson has none);
- Links to Docket Sheets (on the bottom right) (note – you will need to click “Update Docket” to access current day docket sheets);
- New stories mentioning the judge (recent/current cases include bullying, child pornography, age discrimination, insurance bad faith, filing false tax returns).
Searching for Reported Decisions in Westlaw for Judge Kim Gibson, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania:
- Click Cases;
- Click Federal District Courts (and then Pennsylvania);
- Click Advanced Search using his name in the Judge field (I typed: kim /2 Gibson);
- Then to make sure they were cases he decided, I used the JUDGE filter on the left, and also filtered for Reported cases;
- From here, you can see he DOES actually have 73 Reported Decisions, with the most recent one being April 26, 2019. https://1.next.westlaw.com/Search/Results.html?query=advanced%3A%20JU(kim%20%2F2%20gibson)&jurisdiction=DCTPA&contentType=CASE&querySubmissionGuid=i0ad6ad3b0000016b8fc4e1a89a898258&categoryPageUrl=Home%2FCases%2FFederalDistrictCourtCases%2FPennsylvaniaFederalDistrictCourtCases&searchId=i0ad6ad3b0000016b8fc14dcbc88f5d0b&collectionSet=w_cs_dctpa&transitionType=ListViewType&contextData=(sc.Search)
Searching for WashULaw connections in Westlaw using the West Legal Directory:
- Click West Legal Directory;
- Advanced Search for: (“washington university” % “george washington”) – providing these results: https://www.westlaw.com/SharedLink/b4c0c24329854a5fb0bff7324e7e7707?VR=3.0&RS=cblt1.0
- Use filters on the left to sort for just Wash U, which leaves 5,993 results: https://www.westlaw.com/SharedLink/3408fdb801f24413b46cf4d6cdf01ff7?VR=3.0&RS=cblt1.0
4. Next “Search Within Results” for the judge’s name (kim /2 gibson), which produces 0 results:
5. To double-check the Westlaw results, go back to the West Legal Directory and do an advance search for his name: (kim /3 gibson). This produces 18 results: https://www.westlaw.com/SharedLink/5427796de83a4ff6b589a6b4aae95129?VR=3.0&RS=cblt1.0 None of the 18 had WashU as a Law School.
Searching for additional information in Westlaw using the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary:
- Click Almanac of the Federal Judiciary
- In the search bar, search (Kim /2 Gibson)
The top result contains a positive but short discussion about the judge: https://1.next.westlaw.com/Search/Results.html?query=advanced%3A%20kim%20%2F2%20gibson&saveJuris=False&contentType=LEGAL-DIRECTORIES&querySubmissionGuid=i0ad6ad3b0000016b8ff63accc88f915d&startIndex=1&categoryPageUrl=Home%2FDirectories%2FAlmanacoftheFederalJudiciary&searchId=i0ad6ad3b0000016b8ff63accc88f915d&kmSearchIdRequested=False&simpleSearch=False&isAdvancedSearchTemplatePage=False&skipSpellCheck=False&isTrDiscoverSearch=False&thesaurusSearch=False&thesaurusTermsApplied=False&ancillaryChargesAccepted=False&proviewEligible=False&eventingTypeOfSearch=BOL&transitionType=Search&contextData=%28sc.Search%29