One of the concerns about online law review submission systems such as ExpressO is that ease of distribution creates an avalanche of submissions for the law reviews. Authors can double the size of their normal mail-outs with the click of the button. Likewise, online applications for law schools have increased the number of applications per applicant, creating more work for admissions workers and less certainty of admission yields. I suppose that an online clerkship application system such as OSCAR could also have the same effect on federal judicial clerkship applications, resulting in more applications per applicant.
I wonder if any of our readers have any sense of how this will play out. I assume that it is still the norm to accept clerkship offers as they come and not to hold offers (and certainly not to expedite). If true, then that norm would keep applications per applicant down even in an environment with a marginal cost per application of zero. However, if applications do rise, how will this affect the hiring process? In the law review submission process, as submissions increase, editors must rely on signals (reliable and unreliable) of quality to do much sorting at an early stage. In admissions, greater applications forces admissions offices to rely more on objective criteria ("the numbers"). Could increased clerkship applications have the same effect of requiring chambers to make sorting decisions based on easy criteria, such as school and gpa?
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8345157d569e200d834e22bdb69e2
Links to weblogs that reference The Other OSCAR, Part II:
1. Posted by Matt on August 30, 2006 @ 14:23 | Permalink
OSCAR will have that effect anyway. When you had to open all the applications and at least glance at the resumes, it was harder to sort by grades. Now OSCAR will do it automatically.
2. Posted by Anon on August 30, 2006 @ 20:38 | Permalink
As a journal editor, I pay less and less attention to ExpressO. At least OSCAR is a cattle call that only happens once a year. Unless current clerks got really jaded on ExpressO from past experience, and believe in guilt by association.
3. Posted by Jeremy Telman on September 2, 2006 @ 2:54 | Permalink
Goodness, Anon, do tell more! I thought I was doing you a favor by submitting through ExpressO! If there is some preferred manner of submission, please let us know what it is. If using ExpressO is the same as sending my submission directly to the rubbish bin, I think my institution is wasting its money by subscribing.
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
