I'm currently clerking with a judge I absolutely love and who is supportive of my goals.

I received an attractive offer but they want me to leave my clerkship 5-6 months early, which I don't particularly want to do, but still considering it. Judge supports this but would be disappointed.

Obviously leaving early I'd be leaving valuable clerking experience on the table. I'd like to be compensated for that opportunity cost.

The question is what is this worth? Want to request a signing bonus.

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More details: It's a 2 year clerkship in state appellate court. The offer is at a midsize regional firm for biglaw pay in my desired practice area. 1900 billable hours + 100 marketing/networking hours. Firm is expanding very fast and says they need someone ASAP.

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That’s a fantastic offer tbh.

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It will be very hard to assign a dollar figure to the experience you’d miss out on. By leaving the clerkship early, you will earn way more money, not less money.

I completely understand the hesitancy to leave the clerkship early—clerking is one of the best experiences I’ve had as a lawyer and it sounds like you really like your judge. I’d consider negotiating start date rather than signing bonus. But if you need to start asap and that’s what you want to do, then any dollar figure you ask for as a signing bonus will have to be arbitrary. Not saying don’t ask for one, just saying that it will be hard to have a principled argument for a specific number.

You mentioned the firm pays market. One thing you could ask for is a two-year clerkship bonus at the going market rate. Not sure what that is anymore, and not sure how many firms pay a bonus for the second year of clerking for the same judge. But at least you’ll have some market data to point to

I just had a very similar situation but the firm allowed me to either start immediately or finish my clerkship. I chose to finish the clerkship out of my relationship with my judge. That said, the offer for the later start date included no additional class credit or clerkship bonus in recognition of 2 years as compared to 1. So financially, wasn’t the smartest decision on my end, and I somewhat regret my choice. So if your judge is cool with it/understanding, strongly consider taking it. If they aren’t, then it’s how much do you value the relationship with the judge. Long way to ask: is inconveniencing your judge worth leaving 50-80k on the table? You could also ask the firm to let you start after your judge finds a replacement which may take a couple weeks.

I asked for relocation costs since I have to move states, for bar admission costs in that state, and a clerkship bonus (I asked reasoning that they are giving 1 year of credit instead of 2 and my writing and research would be ahead of a single year clerk) they gave relocation costs and bar admission but said it’s firm policy to just one year of credit and no bonus. That said, asking the hiring coordinator or director or whoever sent the offer letter to discuss the offer and then asking about one won’t hurt.

It sounds like they need you yesterday. If they pay BL market, it should be easy to get a clerkship bonus (especially since they are asking you to leave early).

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