Making the Jump from the Clerk’s Table to the Courtroom: Transitioning to Practice After Clerking
By Michelle R. Pascucci
More than ten years have passed since I entered the Moakley Courthouse for the first day of my clerkship. After law school, I clerked for Honorable George A. O’Toole, Jr., in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, followed by a clerkship on the First Circuit Court of Appeals with the late Honorable Juan R. Torruella.
Clerkships are designed to delight the hapless nerds of law school—an opportunity to delve into the joys of legal prose without parsing through endless document reviews or navigating law firm bureaucracy. But for this very reason, transitioning from a clerkship to the practice of law is not always intuitive. The lessons I took from my entry into practice following my clerkships stick with me even today.
Use Your Clerkship Wisely
A clerkship is an extension of one’s legal education. I saw each case from the inside of the courthouse, and I learned, first-hand, which written arguments and oral advocacy were most effective to the judge. Critically, I also learned what advocacy I found most effective. Reading a brief, I would check every case, and whenever a litigant stretched the meaning of caselaw—for example, offering a parenthetical that misstated a holding—I lost confidence in their arguments. I had a similar reaction when a litigant omitted a damning fact, only for that very fact to make a compelling centerpiece to an opposing brief. To this day, I always strive to be relentlessly accurate in my writing.
For graduates and lawyers still in your first years of practice, use these lessons in your own advocacy. As a clerk, you play an essential role: you are often the first to review a set of briefs, and you recommend to the judge which litigant should prevail. Particularly if you pursue a career as a litigator, that perspective—how do I submit a brief with the right points while building my credibility?—will resurface each time you make arguments to the court.
Recognize What You Do Not Know
As a clerk, you focus on the art of legal writing and thorough research. These are both important skills, but they only get you so far as a litigator. When you enter practice, your cohort will have started developing skills that you simply cannot obtain as a clerk. How do you manage a document review and production in complex commercial litigation? How do you counsel a client who is considering a guilty plea? How do you meet and confer with opposing counsel? In many ways, a clerkship offers the chance to enjoy the practice of law without the nuts and bolts of litigation. But those intricacies are just as important as eloquent prose. Similarly, should you join a law firm, you will have clients. Rather than acting as a neutral arbiter, you must be a zealous advocate. Clients may ask you to make arguments that you know are unlikely to prevail (and, at times, you may need to persuade your client why you cannot or should not make those arguments). When you enter practice, take the opportunity to assess what you might have missed, and find mentors who will help you build the skills you need to practice.
Learn What you Love
A clerkship is a golden opportunity to figure out what you want to do long term. At many law firms, there is substantial pressure to specialize in a niche area of law. A clerkship provides exposure to both criminal and civil litigation, as well as to a broad range of legal subjects: class action, securities litigation, intellectual property, employment law, business litigation—the list goes on. Experiment with as many areas of law as possible, and figure out what you hate, what you like, and what you love. If you leave your clerkship fully confident that you never, ever want to read another brief, bravo! You have learned that you should not be a litigator.
Clerkships are also an opportunity to think carefully about your plans for your next years of practice. My clerkship gave me a runway to explore and apply to the Department of Justice Honors Program, where I was ultimately hired as a Trial Attorney for the Fraud Section. Similarly, many of my co-clerks obtained public interest fellowships, while others went to law firms. A clerkship can be a helpful pause button to consider your path forward early in your career.
All in the (Court) Family
Many pursue federal clerkships to work directly for a judge, but being a clerk is more than serving a single individual. In a federal district court, you may work hand-in-hand with the courtroom deputy clerk, the docket clerk, the judicial assistant, and the court reporter. When I clerked for Judge O’Toole, most of these individuals had worked with each other and for Judge O’Toole for years. They knew his preferences and practices, and I had as much to learn from them as I did from Judge O’Toole. Succeeding in the clerkship was not just about writing the best legal memoranda; it was about working alongside the tight community that made up the session. I appreciate the relationships I developed with every member of this community. Like the time I gifted our courtroom deputy a tie that, belatedly, I am certain he hated, but which he did his darndest to pretend he loved.
If you enter practice in the same geographical area where you clerked, stay connected to your court family. As a former clerk, you know the proclivities of particular judges and their staff. Share that knowledge, with the critical caveat that you must always be careful to maintain your relationship of confidentiality with the judge. Should you enter a firm where a partner has a case in front of your judge, do not be shy about offering to assist.
Stay Connected to Your Fellow Clerks
The opportunity to join the clerk community is priceless. I am constantly impressed by what my fellow clerks have achieved, and I am lucky to remain close with many of these amazing lawyers. When you enter practice, continue to foster relationships with your co-clerks. My fellow clerks have supported me professionally, offering advice when I sought out new career opportunities. Now that I am in private practice, some have referred potential clients my way. Equally important, they are friends. The friends whom—when you meet for lunch—you can ask, “why isn’t my toddler sleeping?” and they instantly understand because their toddler is not sleeping either.
Clerkships Are More Than Prestige
If you treat a clerkship as just a gold star on your resume, you have missed the point. I served my appellate clerkship alongside Judge Torruella, a man whom I could not help but view as superhuman. If being a federal appellate judge were not enough, he had sailed in the Olympics and was an artist (he even painted his own portrait). After clerking for Judge Torruella, I assumed he would only be interested in my professional accomplishments: that was why I had clerked for him, wasn’t it? To ascend the ladder of expected professional success?
It was 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. With a new baby at home, I did not quite understand how to balance it all. I had not reached out to Judge Torruella in some time, and—on somewhat of a whim—sent him a picture of my then one-year-old son.
He responded within a day, with a heartfelt, beautiful note, expressing how happy he was for my family, and noting—with a line that I will always cherish—that my son “looked like a future Justice.” Clerking was not just about that single professional accomplishment; it was being part of the courtroom community, and I had become a member of Judge Torruella’s community. That was the last correspondence I had with him, as he would pass away within a few months. And if there is any advice I can impart to new lawyers completing clerkships, it is not only to use your clerkship to become a better lawyer, but to use your clerkship to expand the scope of your life perspective. If only I had taken a few more opportunities to ask Judge Torruella what parts of his career and life had brought him the most joy, I am certain he would have shared them with me, and I am certain they would have been valuable.
Hopefully, our careers will be long, and a clerkship is a single year (or sometimes more) free from the typical stresses of law practice. No one will ask for your monthly billables. No one will ask about your book of business. A clerkship is a blissfully short opportunity to figure out how you want to practice and live your life. Use it.
Michelle R. Pascucci is a partner at Donnelly, Conroy & Gelhaar, where she practices in government investigations, white-collar criminal litigation, and complex civil litigation. After her clerkships, she served as a Trial Attorney in the Fraud Section of the U.S. Department of Justice. Sometimes, but not always, her toddler sleeps.
