Federal agency credit for term clerkships?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was given "credit" for the hours of leave per pay period but not for other benefits, which makes sense bc as a law clerk I wasn't eligible for retirement benefits. So that would mean you would accrue 6 hours of leave a pay period after only 1 year at your new position (for the first 3 years, it is only 4 hours of leave a pay period, which is a little over 2 weeks).

This is correct. Term law clerks are not covered under FERS. Whether or not you were covered under the leave act, the years of credit should count for your future leave accrual. If you were covered under the leave act, any sick leave balance should be reinstated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was given "credit" for the hours of leave per pay period but not for other benefits, which makes sense bc as a law clerk I wasn't eligible for retirement benefits. So that would mean you would accrue 6 hours of leave a pay period after only 1 year at your new position (for the first 3 years, it is only 4 hours of leave a pay period, which is a little over 2 weeks).

This is correct. Term law clerks are not covered under FERS. Whether or not you were covered under the leave act, the years of credit should count for your future leave accrual. If you were covered under the leave act, any sick leave balance should be reinstated.

I got credit in FERS for my one-year clerkship. It took two years for our HR department to get the necessary paperwork from the court, but once they did, my service computation date in FERS was a year earlier than when I started with my agency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was given "credit" for the hours of leave per pay period but not for other benefits, which makes sense bc as a law clerk I wasn't eligible for retirement benefits. So that would mean you would accrue 6 hours of leave a pay period after only 1 year at your new position (for the first 3 years, it is only 4 hours of leave a pay period, which is a little over 2 weeks).

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was given "credit" for the hours of leave per pay period but not for other benefits, which makes sense bc as a law clerk I wasn't eligible for retirement benefits. So that would mean you would accrue 6 hours of leave a pay period after only 1 year at your new position (for the first 3 years, it is only 4 hours of leave a pay period, which is a little over 2 weeks).

This is correct. Term law clerks are not covered under FERS. Whether or not you were covered under the leave act, the years of credit should count for your future leave accrual. If you were covered under the leave act, any sick leave balance should be reinstated.

I got credit in FERS for my one-year clerkship. It took two years for our HR department to get the necessary paperwork from the court, but once they did, my service computation date in FERS was a year earlier than when I started with my agency.

Are you sure it was for your retirement service computation date and not your leave/TSP service computation date? Did you have FERS contributions deducted from your paycheck when clerking? I was told that temp and term positions do not count for FERS because you don’t contribute - I checked old paystubs and there were no FERS deductions when clerking (only my TSP contributions and matching).

[Anonymous]

Term law clerk positions do not count toward your FERS/TSP service (there's one exception -- if you have continuous non-broken federal service, e.g. if you transfer directly from career position->law clerk, you can keep your FERS/TSP).

But your law clerk time does count toward your total federal service or service start date computation, even if your clerkship was not on the leave plan, in terms of both time in grade for the JS/GS scale and for your leave computation date. If your new HR is playing dumb, just go back to your courthouse admin and get a copy of your SF-50 and provide it to your HR folks and they can take it from there. Don't treat it like your clerkship was something special, just tell them you had previous federal employment on a term basis and you want it reflected appropriately in your personnel file.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Term law clerk positions do not count toward your FERS/TSP service (there's one exception -- if you have continuous non-broken federal service, e.g. if you transfer directly from career position->law clerk, you can keep your FERS/TSP).

But your law clerk time does count toward your total federal service or service start date computation, even if your clerkship was not on the leave plan, in terms of both time in grade for the JS/GS scale and for your leave computation date. If your new HR is playing dumb, just go back to your courthouse admin and get a copy of your SF-50 and provide it to your HR folks and they can take it from there. Don't treat it like your clerkship was something special, just tell them you had previous federal employment on a term basis and you want it reflected appropriately in your personnel file.

+1. My term clerkship counted for leave accrual purposes, but not for retirement calculation purposes.

[Anonymous]

There are multiple service computation dates (SCDs). Term clerkships count for vacation/leave but not for creditable service toward retirement.

I’m a 20 year fed who just left for private practice and went through this. I got a leave payout back in the day from my clerkship—that’s not a reliable indicator of retirement SCD.

[Anonymous]

Did you pay into FERS while you were clerking??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was given "credit" for the hours of leave per pay period but not for other benefits, which makes sense bc as a law clerk I wasn't eligible for retirement benefits. So that would mean you would accrue 6 hours of leave a pay period after only 1 year at your new position (for the first 3 years, it is only 4 hours of leave a pay period, which is a little over 2 weeks).

This is correct. Term law clerks are not covered under FERS. Whether or not you were covered under the leave act, the years of credit should count for your future leave accrual. If you were covered under the leave act, any sick leave balance should be reinstated.

I got credit in FERS for my one-year clerkship. It took two years for our HR department to get the necessary paperwork from the court, but once they did, my service computation date in FERS was a year earlier than when I started with my agency.

+1. My husband clerked for the Ninth Circuit in the late 1990's. Then he worked at a federal agency (and now he's at a law firm). He got credit for that 1 year of clerking for the Ninth. It seems fair to me.