She is a graduate of Bowling Green State University (summa cum laude) and the University of Pennsylvania Law School (cum laude and Order of the Coif), where she was a senior editor and published author with the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Following a federal judicial clerkship with the Honorable Norma L. Shapiro in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Professor Clapp was a litigator with Drinker Biddle & Reath in Philadelphia, and then was in-house counsel with the Law Department of the United States Postal Service where she also served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney.