Zero Journal Experience = Out at Top Firms? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hi all,

I'm a 1L at YLS. I currently have ZERO journal experience. I haven't joined any secondary journals, and I will not be participating in the Law Journal's citation/writing competition. I do plan on joining a secondary journal or two next year, but will my lack of journal experience alone keep me out of firms like WC, WLRK, Cravath, S&C, etc come August OCI? Should I bother bidding on such firms?

Thanks for your help!

[vanwinkle]

I think the first question is, what else will you be doing?

Not having journal experience isn't automatically condemning if you're spending that time on something else that builds legal experience, and you can justify why you went that route instead. If you don't have a journal or anything else on your resume that indicates you're building legal experience, though, you're probably SOL.

[Anonymous User]

I think the first question is, what else will you be doing?

Not having journal experience isn't automatically condemning if you're spending that time on something else that builds legal experience, and you can justify why you went that route instead. If you don't have a journal or anything else on your resume that indicates you're building legal experience, though, you're probably SOL.

Thanks so much for your input.

Well, actually, I didn't join a journal because I chose to focus instead on clinical work, with which I'm heavily involved. I don't know if clinical work will be seen as an adequate substitute for lack of journal experience, though.

[reverendt]

OP....you're coming from Yale, so as long as your academic performance is respectable you should be fine at many top firms. At my T2, a journal makes a big difference. Probably less so for Yale, unless you want a chance at a clerkship (in which case by all means get on a journal).

Nobody does journals the first year (at least at most schools....) so you haven't missed anything yet anyway.

[Anonymous User]

OP....you're coming from Yale, so as long as your academic performance is respectable you should be fine at many top firms. At my T2, a journal makes a big difference. Probably less so for Yale, unless you want a chance at a clerkship (in which case by all means get on a journal).

Nobody does journals the first year (at least at most schools....) so you haven't missed anything yet anyway.

Thanks for your advice! My worry stems from the fact that most people here do a journal as a 1L. Then again, most don't join a clinic.

[vanwinkle]

Thanks for your advice! My worry stems from the fact that most people here do a journal as a 1L. Then again, most don't join a clinic.

Bolded is important. I don't think there are many YLS students with clinic but no journal experience to compare yourself to, but the important thing is that you're 1) developing legal experience and 2) doing something that you can talk about positively during your interviews. Journals usually offer this to people, but a clinic can also. I suspect it won't hold you back very much.

The things I'd expect to hold you back are either 1) low grades (which doesn't happen at Yale, does it) or 2) not being on LR. But those would equally hold back people on secondary journals who have those problems.

[Anonymous User]

Bump

[wiseowl]

i realize you may not want to say which clinic, but is it at least somewhat related to the type of work you would want to do at a firm?

i would think a firm will scratch their heads a bit if you voluntarily decline a journal competition to do legal aid-type work that could have easily waited a week.

[XxSpyKEx]

Dude you go to Yale. Somehow I doubt finding employment at top law firms will even remotely be an issue because you didn't do journal as a 1L. At most schools you can't even go journal as a 1L. Just join a journal prior to OCI and list it on your resume (even though you haven't done anything in it yet), and you'll be on equal footing with law students from pretty much every law school in the country that is not Yale.

[ggocat]

Dude you go to Yale. Somehow I doubt finding employment at top law firms will even remotely be an issue because you didn't do journal as a 1L. At most schools you can't even go journal as a 1L. Just join a journal prior to OCI and list it on your resume (even though you haven't done anything in it yet), and you'll be on better than equal footing with law students from pretty much every law school in the country that is not Yale.

[Anonymous User]

Bumpity bump

[Anonymous User]

Power Bump!

[BradyToMoss]

Bumpity bump

Wth are you bumping for? Almost no one has 1L journal experience, this has been answered already. It will not disqualify you from working at a top firm. No journal 2nd year and you might find yourself without a chance at five or six firms, but even that is not definite coming from Yale.

[vanwinkle]

Wth are you bumping for? Almost no one has 1L journal experience, this has been answered already. It will not disqualify you from working at a top firm. No journal 2nd year and you might find yourself without a chance at five or six firms, but even that is not definite coming from Yale.

Actually, I'll take issue with this. We've done journal tryouts and invites here, and journals have already put 1Ls accepted onto journals to work already doing cite checks. That way, when OGI rolls around this fall, those people can say they have journal experience already during interviews.

I'd imagine that it's the same way at other top schools so that their students can list journals on their resumes during OCI there.

[Anonymous User]

they don't really let people this stupid into yale do they?

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Sorry, that wasn't me bumping! Thanks for all your replies!

[BradyToMoss]

Wth are you bumping for? Almost no one has 1L journal experience, this has been answered already. It will not disqualify you from working at a top firm. No journal 2nd year and you might find yourself without a chance at five or six firms, but even that is not definite coming from Yale.

Actually, I'll take issue with this. We've done journal tryouts and invites here, and journals have already put 1Ls accepted onto journals to work already doing cite checks. That way, when OGI rolls around this fall, those people can say they have journal experience already during interviews.

I'd imagine that it's the same way at other top schools so that their students can list journals on their resumes during OCI there.

Law review is released for every school (that I know of) before Fall OCI resumes are due. Everyone doing law review (and secondary journals for that matter) will have their journal listed on their resume when interviewing. If OP is trying to be on a journal as a 2L at Yale he will have every opportunity at a top firm. As far as your example goes, employers could give two shits whether you're doing cite checks in the spring of 1L year or the fall of 2L year, so long as you are on law review.

[vexion]

...

[270910]

OP, your post says YLS, but your profile says UVA.

The op is using the boards anonymous feature, wtf are you talking about?

[vexion]

The op is using the boards anonymous feature, wtf are you talking about?

Edited for idiocy. Must've clicked the wrong Profile.

[vanwinkle]

Law review is released for every school (that I know of) before Fall OCI resumes are due. Everyone doing law review (and secondary journals for that matter) will have their journal listed on their resume when interviewing. If OP is trying to be on a journal as a 2L at Yale he will have every opportunity at a top firm. As far as your example goes, employers could give two shits whether you're doing cite checks in the spring of 1L year or the fall of 2L year, so long as you are on law review.

My point was that (and I may have read this wrong) OP sounded like he/she was being concerned they wouldn't have a journal or LR on their resume for OCI, since he wasn't going to join a journal until next year and wasn't doing the LR writing competition. I took joining a journal "next year" to mean "after OCI" since OCI is typically before the 2L year starts.

It's a question of timing. The concern for OCI is what you can put on your resume at OCI. If you don't join a journal until after OCI, but others have already joined, that could be an advantage for them during OCI. Also, if you don't try out for LR, that makes it much harder to actually get on it.

[Anonymous User]

It's a question of timing. The concern for OCI is what you can put on your resume at OCI. If you don't join a journal until after OCI, but others have already joined, that could be an advantage for them during OCI. Also, if you don't try out for LR, that makes it much harder to actually get on it.

This is exactly my concern. I'm worried that not having a journal listed on my resume would put me at a disadvantage at OCI in August even though I'll most definitely have secondary journal experience before I start working as a Summer Associate at the firm the following June. I don't know if communicating this to the interviewer this suffice, or if they'll have a hard time overlooking my empty-ish (non-journal) resume. That said, I'll focus on my grades and hopefully it'll all turn out alright.

Thanks so much for your help!

[XxSpyKEx]

It's a question of timing. The concern for OCI is what you can put on your resume at OCI. If you don't join a journal until after OCI, but others have already joined, that could be an advantage for them during OCI. Also, if you don't try out for LR, that makes it much harder to actually get on it.

This is exactly my concern. I'm worried that not having a journal listed on my resume would put me at a disadvantage at OCI in August even though I'll most definitely have secondary journal experience before I start working as a Summer Associate at the firm the following June. I don't know if communicating this to the interviewer this suffice, or if they'll have a hard time overlooking my empty-ish (non-journal) resume. That said, I'll focus on my grades and hopefully it'll all turn out alright.

Thanks so much for your help!

Why don't you just join a journal just prior to OCI like pretty much all other law students at non-yale law schools?

[Anonymous User]

It's a question of timing. The concern for OCI is what you can put on your resume at OCI. If you don't join a journal until after OCI, but others have already joined, that could be an advantage for them during OCI. Also, if you don't try out for LR, that makes it much harder to actually get on it.

This is exactly my concern. I'm worried that not having a journal listed on my resume would put me at a disadvantage at OCI in August even though I'll most definitely have secondary journal experience before I start working as a Summer Associate at the firm the following June. I don't know if communicating this to the interviewer this suffice, or if they'll have a hard time overlooking my empty-ish (non-journal) resume. That said, I'll focus on my grades and hopefully it'll all turn out alright.

Thanks so much for your help!

Why don't you just join a journal just prior to OCI like pretty much all other law students at non-yale law schools?

I'm not sure that I can. Usually, one joins a journal at the start of a semester. Here, OCI occurs two weeks before the Fall semester. I'll look into it, though.

[BradyToMoss]

It's a question of timing. The concern for OCI is what you can put on your resume at OCI. If you don't join a journal until after OCI, but others have already joined, that could be an advantage for them during OCI. Also, if you don't try out for LR, that makes it much harder to actually get on it.

This is exactly my concern. I'm worried that not having a journal listed on my resume would put me at a disadvantage at OCI in August even though I'll most definitely have secondary journal experience before I start working as a Summer Associate at the firm the following June. I don't know if communicating this to the interviewer this suffice, or if they'll have a hard time overlooking my empty-ish (non-journal) resume. That said, I'll focus on my grades and hopefully it'll all turn out alright.

Thanks so much for your help!

Why don't you just join a journal just prior to OCI like pretty much all other law students at non-yale law schools?

I'm not sure that I can. Usually, one joins a journal at the start of a semester. Here, OCI occurs two weeks before the Fall semester. I'll look into it, though.

Your school will inform you of your journal status before OCI resumes are due. If there's a school that does not do this (and loves to put their alums at a huge competitive disadvantage), feel free to let TLS know this, because it's a fully retarded move on the school's part.