By Karen Sloan

       April 25 (Reuters) - The University of Chicago Law

School is back at No. 1 on the list of law schools that sent the

highest percentage of graduates into federal clerkships,

according to new data from the American Bar Association.

    The Chicago law school sent 25.35% of its 2023 juris doctors

into federal judicial clerkships, which are highly sought-after

and competitive positions, according to a trove of ABA hiring

data released on Monday. The law school claimed the top

clerkship spot in both 2020 and 2021, but was pushed to No. 3 in

2022 after it posted a clerkship rate of 20% and was overtaken

by Stanford Law School and Yale Law School.

    Yale Law School was No. 2 in 2023 with 24.11% of its JDs

landing federal clerkships, followed by Stanford Law School at

20.77%. The University of Notre Dame Law School was next with

18.18% of graduates in federal clerkships, while the University

of Michigan Law School rounded out the top five at 14.01%.

    Federal clerkships are prestigious, year-long positions that

are viewed as key credentials for other sought-after jobs,

including judgeships and law professorships.

    But they’re relatively scarce. The ABA data show that just

3.4% of 2023’s 35,215 JD graduates nationwide landed federal

clerkships. And the market for federal clerks is dominated by a

small number of law schools.

    The 10 law schools with highest percentage of 2023 JDs in

federal clerkships produced a third of all such clerks

nationwide. Harvard Law School had the largest number of federal

clerks in 2023 at 66, but that represents 11.58% of the

graduating class due to it large size.

    Conservative federal circuit court judges James Ho and

Elizabeth Branch said they won’t hire Yale and Stanford law

students as clerks after protests of conservative speakers in

late 2022 and early 2023, respectively. But those boycotts did

not apply to law students who graduated in 2023. Most federal

judges made clerk hiring decisions for those students in the

summer of 2022. And both Ho and Branch said their boycotts would

apply only to newly enrolled students at Yale and Stanford.

    Read more:

    These law schools ranked tops for jobs in 2023

    Conservative judges extend clerk boycott to Stanford after

disrupted speech

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2023 JDs in federal clerkships    https://reut.rs/3WfQE75

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(Reporting by Karen Sloan)

((Karen.Sloan@thomsonreuters.com;))