Careers
Search Job Vacancies

We plan to add a national vacancy announcement system to uscourts.gov by the end of the year to simplify job hunting in the Judiciary. Until then job vacancies in the federal courts can be found by

• Using our Search for Jobs page. While this is not a comprehensive list of all Judiciary vacancies, it does list many of the career opportunities currently available in courts and federal public defender offices.
• Going to the Court Locator and selecting an area of the country you are interested in viewing and checking the local court or office web sites for vacancies.
• OSCAR (Law Clerk Application) is the centralized resource for notice of available clerkship positions and accommodates judges who choose to accept clerkship applications online, judges who want to receive paper applications, and judges who are not hiring.
• Viewing career opportunities at the Administrative Office (AO) of the U.S. Courts.

The federal courts operate independently and fill their job vacancies locally. If you apply for a position with a court or defender office you will need to follow up with that office directly with questions and for status updates.

The federal courts have a wide variety of positions, many of which do not require a law degree or a legal background. Each job vacancy announcement will list the qualifications for that particular position.