LAP Announces Summer Waitlist and Revised Pricing for Centralized Clerkships Database
Thursday, July 18, 2024
For Immediate Release
Contact: Aliza Shatzman, 267-481-2095, aliza.shatzman@legalaccountabilityproject.org
LAP Announces Summer Waitlist and Revised Pricing for Centralized Clerkships Database
Two years ago, The Legal Accountability Project committed to an audacious goal: creating a first-of-its-kind, national Centralized Clerkships Database to democratize judicial clerkship opportunities, compiling clerkship experience surveys from judicial law clerks nationwide to ensure the broadest, most candid information accessible to the most aspiring judicial clerks. Compared to Yelp or Glassdoor for Judges, LAP’s Database empowers law clerks who work for judges to review their powerful bosses in a verified, anonymous platform that encourages greater candor in responses.
In April 2024, LAP took an unprecedented step to ensure transparency, equity, and accountability in judicial clerkships, launching our Clerkships Database for the first cohort of student and young attorney users. This spring, LAP charged $20 per user for this clerkship cycle (from March/April through August 2024).
LAP’s Clerkships Database currently contains more than 1,200 candid reviews about more than 850 federal and state judges. LAP’s Database contains surveys from every state and every federal circuit. It is the largest independent repository of clerkship information in the U.S. and is already twice the size of many top law schools’ internal clerkships databases.
Over the past few months, LAP has been overwhelmed by the incredibly positive response to this initiative and incredible number of subscribers: students who sought out this information on their own and paid to access it. This first year, LAP has already onboarded more than 1,000 law students and young lawyers, representing nearly every U.S. law school. No longer is judicial clerkship information siloed off at a few well-resourced schools or selectively shared with applicants. Every applicant can now access baseline information about clerking, including judges’ managerial styles, chambers culture, work/life balance, treatment of clerks, and expectations for the role.
LAP has also enjoyed working with several top law reviews, including the Harvard Law Review and New York University Law Review, who subscribed on behalf of their 2L editorial boards.
Given the increased costs associated with maintaining the platform and running a primarily (though not exclusively) individual subscribers model, LAP will be raising the individual subscribers price for our Clerkships Database beginning on August, 1, 2024 for one year of access to: $40 for law students (twice the price for twice as many months’ access) and $60 for recent graduates/practicing attorneys.
Clerkship applicants can visit survey.legalaccountabilityproject.org to begin the registration process and add their names to a Summer Waitlist. On or around August 1, 2024, registrants will receive an email reminder with instructions to complete their registrations.
LAP recognizes that cost will be a barrier for some number of students. Scholarship opportunities will again be available.
Students should also urge their law schools to subscribe on behalf of all (or some) students, thereby ensuring there are no barriers to equitable access and that clerkships are not restricted to the wealthy and well-connected. Reach out to LAP for email templates for outreach.
LAP will also continue to offer the following reduced rates for bulk subscribers:
Law journals and student organizations subscribing on behalf of 50 or more students will be charged $5 per student. Organizations subscribing on behalf of fewer than 50 students will be charged $10 per student.
Law schools subscribing on behalf of all (or a previously-negotiated number of) students, will pay $5 per student (for 50 or more students) and $10 per student for fewer than 50 students.
Given recent judicial accountability news, the urgency of LAP’s work, and the importance of identifying a “good fit” and avoiding abusive judges, could not be more clear. LAP has upended the clerkship system, sparked a national dialogue around clerking, and empowered clerkship applicants to truly be informed decision-makers.
We look forward to supporting many more aspiring clerks on their clerkship journeys in the months and years ahead.