Gone are the days when our district would designate a particular magistrate judge who, along with his or her clerks, would handle certain pro se and inmate petitions. Those cases are now distributed among the district court judges, who in turn, have designated pro se law clerks.
The number of pro se petitions has grown exponentially and the district is in need of more talented law clerks. There are currently three open spots available and, if you are interested, I would encourage you to apply. The position is a good one in its own right (including the pay), but it is also a path to a more traditional law clerk experience. A handful of judges have already hired their pro se clerks to serve as term clerks.
Details for the openings can be found here: https://www.flsd.uscourts.gov/sites/flsd/files/jobs/2026-JDS-21%20Pro%20Se%20Law%20Clerk.pdf.
There are also other openings which may be of interest to the community, including term clerkships, listed here: https://www.flsd.uscourts.gov/job-listings.
3 comments:
I'd really like to better understand how these roles play out in practice. It seems SO inconsistent, at least in the civil arena. Half of absolutely looney-toons, batshit, "sovereign citizen" complaints get dismissed sua sponte by the court (presumably as a result of these law clerks' work) yet half just sit there and the defendants are forced to move to dismiss, almost always on shotgun pleading grounds, among others. Que pasa??
It typically comes down to whether the plaintiff is a prisoner and whether they are proceeding in forma pauperis. See 28 U.S.C. §1915A.
Well I was talking about civil and not "civil" post-conviction matters. So they're never prisoners. But if IFP status matters, it still seems wildly inconsistent.
For crim--those factors you identified don't seem to be doing much work given all the pro se 3582s (including repeat requests on the same legal basis previously denied, with no new facts or circumstances alleged).
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