Law students working unpaid internships with federal judges may be able to accept substantial financial support from law firms recruiting them, provided the payments are kept separate from their judicial work, according to new guidance from the judiciary’s ethics committee.
The U.S. Judicial Conference’s Committee on Codes of Conduct addressed the issue as law firms increasingly compete to secure promising students much earlier in their legal education.
Several prominent firms have introduced stipends ranging from roughly $25,000 to $50,000 for first-year law students who commit to joining them as summer associates. The payments are designed in part to enable students to spend time in government agencies, nonprofit organizations and other public-interest positions without giving up the financial benefits associated with private-sector recruitment.
Davis Polk & Wardwell, Milbank, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Latham & Watkins are among the firms that have adopted versions of these arrangements.
Judicial internships are often unpaid. Students assisting federal judges can gain experience by conducting legal research, helping with writing and observing the workings of the federal court system, but traditionally receive little or no compensation.
Earlier ethics guidance had allowed interns to receive limited educational stipends while warning against payments connected to their judicial service. The latest opinion provides a clearer framework for the newer, larger recruiting payments.
Under the committee’s guidance, judges should ask interns whether they expect to receive financial support from a law firm that has recruited them. Students should also disclose that they have chosen to accept the payment.
The arrangement may be ethically acceptable when the stipend has no connection to the student’s work for the judge and is not paid while the student is serving as an intern. The timing and terms of the payment are therefore central to determining whether the arrangement creates an ethical concern.
The committee also stressed that individual judges can impose stricter rules. A judge may decide that interns and externs in chambers should not accept such payments at all, regardless of when the money is received or how the arrangement is structured.
There is another important safeguard for students who do receive the stipends: they must step aside from cases involving the law firm providing the payment.
The guidance reflects the changing dynamics of law-firm recruitment, where competition for top students is increasingly moving into the earliest stages of law school. At the same time, the judiciary is seeking to ensure that financial arrangements with prospective private-sector employers do not compromise—or appear to compromise—the independence of judicial chambers.
