The Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) announced the following policy decisions from the recent OSCAR Working Group Meeting.

-     The Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan has been effectively discontinued, and no further dates are being set in connection with the plan.  The Working Group established a list of Federal Law Clerk Hiring Best Practices that judges can use to support transparency in law clerk hiring, and they are accessible from the OSCAR home page.
 
-     The AO will open OSCAR to rising second-year law school students in a phased approach.  Under the new process, rising second-year law students can begin researching clerkship openings and uploading their application materials (i.e., resume, cover letters, etc.) on June 1 and submit electronic applications in OSCAR on August 1.
 
AO Director, Judge John D. Bates sent a memorandum to all federal judges on January 13, 2014 announcing the policy decisions and urging federal judges to make greater use of OSCAR for their law clerk hiring.
 
The following link is an OSCAR article that references the AO Director's memorandum:
 
https://oscar.uscourts.gov/blog_post/_1/25/Update_from_the_2013_OSCAR_Working_Group
 
The January 13, 2014 memo from Judge Bates can be viewed at https://oscar.uscourts.gov/assets/Federal_Law_Clerk_Hiring-January_13_2014.pdf.

The Federal Law Clerk Hiring Best Practices provide voluntary guidelines for judges when recruiting and hiring clerkship applicants. These best practices can be viewed at https://oscar.uscourts.gov/hiring-practices.