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Best/worst experiences as a law clerk?
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No. He’s the one that signed it. He should tweak it before it goes out if he doesn’t agree or like it. That’s literally the job. Now if you blatantly missed something, then that’s one thing, but otherwise you should be fine
That’s definitely how it *should* be. But my judge takes even a misplaced comma very personally for some reason. He also conveniently forgets when he’s told me to write something a certain way or cite a certain case.
No and no. His name is on the opinion. Your job is to do what he tells you to do and write what he tells you to write. If he’s upset about how it turned out then he can (1) be more open to feedback from clerks on the law; or (2) die mad.
No judge likes it when an appellate court reverses, however, judges get it and should never take it personal. The judge I clerked for was particularly sour about a 2-1 decision he got reversed on with a strong decent. He blamed the two appellate judges though "for not understanding how trial courts work."
Never. Not unless there is a clear error you got reversed on but even then appeals can tend such a shot in the dark depending on the panel or whatever appellate system is in place
Judges’ behavior can border on ridiculousness in my experience. My judge got annoyed at me for including language in an order that he felt was irrelevant and addressed issues that were not raised in the motion, accusing me of not even reading the motion; I apologized, but (tactfully) explained that the only reason I put the controversial language in there was that he had included that same language in a very recent order on a word-for-word copy of the motion at issue, and I assumed he must have had a good reason for including that portion of the opinion the first time around
My judge doesn't give us the research or tell us how to draft the order (though he might disagree with our conclusions and ask us to redraft it - it's rare and I haven't had that happen to me), but still he would never blame us if the circuit court reversed us. He wouldn't sign an order unless he agreed with us, and he only cares about reversals if we missed very clear caselaw that dictated we should have come out the other way. Otherwise, he (and the rest of chambers) just views it as the circuit court clarifying something that was murky.