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I'm wondering if you can use secondary journals to satisfy the law review requirement a lot of employers have?

mollie wrote:I'm wondering if you can use secondary journals to satisfy the law review requirement a lot of employers have?

From what I've heard, it depends on the school and the secondary journal.

For employers that really, truly do require law review (i.e., probably Wachtell,) a secondary probably isn't going to cut it.

Look, employers use journal membership as a proxy for writing ability, editing ability, etc. A secondary journal is never going to hurt you. In some cases, it will give you only a minor boost. In others, it will give you a moderate boost. If whoever is interviewing you also happened to be on a secondary journal with the same subject material, it will be an asset in the interview.

So, if your question is "is a secondary worth doing?" the answer is yes. Period. If your question is "is a secondary as good as law review?" the answer is no--which you know. Anything else, the correct answer is "do the secondary and see what happens." Lack of Law Review will probably sink you with certain employers and certain clerkship opportunities, but that's the way it goes.

Many employers will have "Journal Membership" as a criteria for whom they're looking for, and not necessarily require law review. As you move up into the more selective employers and clerkships, they'll likely only look for law review. At most schools, law review is so much more time-consuming and selective than the secondary journals that there really is a big difference that employers look for. If you do go the secondary journal route though, you're grades might not take the law-review hit, so it's not all downside.

One thing to add, any journal membership is probably preferable. If you don't do a journal, prepare to answer the "why didn't you do a journal" question during interviews.

slowdiver wrote:Many employers will have "Journal Membership" as a criteria for whom they're looking for, and not necessarily require law review. As you move up into the more selective employers and clerkships, they'll likely only look for law review.

This.
If you can do law review, do it.
If you can't but can do another journal, do it. Most schools have several...try to find out which is most respected and try to get on the best journal you can.
Sometimes it will only give you a minor boost. Sometimes more.
BUT if you're on a decent journal and they decide to publish your note it is huge.

If you're at a school with a ton of different journals and you want to work at a law firm, secondary journal is better than nothing because firms will all but expect you to be on some kind of journal.

However, if being on a secondary journal doesn't sound appealing to you, you can always do something else like moot court, a clinic, externships, etc. If you don't want to work at a firm, one or more of these options might be preferable to a secondary journal if you can't do one of them AND the secondary journal. But if you want to work for a firm, being on a secondary journal during 2L OCI is probably a good idea if you can't get onto law review.

Are all secondary journals equal? Is it better to take the one with the least amount of work or best shot at being EIC/ME instead of the one that has the better reputation around school (and presumably in industry)?

Wait, what?

If you want to know which secondary journals are the most prestigious at your school, you can look at this ranking. Not all journals are equal, at least according to this ranking.
http://lawlib.wlu.edu/lj/index.aspx

Just click "combined" to see the rankings.

Wait, what?

"I'm an editor for the Virginia Journal of International Law, the second highest ranked journal at UVA" might sound better than "I'm an editor for the Virginia Journal of International Law, some journal you've probably never heard of and have no idea about its quality." Or you might just sound like a douche. I don't know. That being said, if I have to find a secondary journal, I'll pick it based on my area of interest rather than ranking.

Hmmm, IDK - I think that at, say HYS, and maybe CCN (for NY firms), the biggest firms (by now) have figured out which secondary journals are better than others. H has some kickass secondaries, for instance. The farther down you go in the rankings, though, the more all secondary journals are probably lumped together (both for firm and law school rankings). But I would hesitate to make blanket statements about all secondary journals.

It "satisfies" it in that you're going to have explain why you don't have it otherwise. You need something which will arguably justify your billing rate when they put your bio on the website.

And if you are at a T6 school whicvh has a ton of journals, you're going to have a very tough time explaining why you're not doing anything. At that point, you just look lazy.

Pardon?

Actually, secondaries do help at schools where being on a secondary isn't essentially a given for all comers. At Chicago, L Rev takes 29--19 are grade on. The two secondaries each take 15-20. So, you have 40-50 people on a journal that don't have write-on grades: 40-50 out of a group of 170 (class of 190 minus the top 10% who grade on) is meaningful. Is l rev better? Obviously, no question there.

Differentiating between secondaries for "prestige" is retarded though. The only way one is going to be better is if it's in your target practice area, or within the interviwer's area of interest.

Also, Ed board on a secondary is still a meaningful title, to the extent that you go to a good enough school and have good enough grades to be borderline for clerkships.

Anonymous User wrote:Hmmm, IDK - I think that at, say HYS, and maybe CCN (for NY firms), the biggest firms (by now) have figured out which secondary journals are better than others. H has some kickass secondaries, for instance. The farther down you go in the rankings, though, the more all secondary journals are probably lumped together (both for firm and law school rankings). But I would hesitate to make blanket statements about all secondary journals.

Indeed, I have the same feeling about HYS in particular.

this is an interesting topic. What if you write for a secondary journal you have little interest in but doing it because you were selected? I assume you would need to explain why you chose this journal but would it necessarily look "bad"?

nm

Anonymous User wrote:this is an interesting topic. What if you write for a secondary journal you have little interest in but doing it because you were selected? I assume you would need to explain why you chose this journal but would it necessarily look "bad"?

I've been faced with this several times and handled it different ways.
I'm on a Tax journal. In several interviews I've been asked if this means I'm interested in Tax Law (which I am not...I wanted journal experience in general....Tax journal chose me).

At first at played it off like I was exploring areas of law including Tax. Those interviews were not successful.
Finally I switched tactics and told an interviewer that I'm not especially interested in Tax law, but I was interested in journal experience, and that my neighbor was on the journal and had a very positive experience (which is true).
I got that job.

[quote="thesealocust

Nobody will care. Nobody will ask. It won't matter. You don't write for the journal, you do bitchwork editing that a trained monkey could do.

I mean, it might come up, but if so only as a random conversation point and not some litmus test of your legal interests. It's impossible to overstate how inane and pointless journals and editorial membership are. You do them for the signaling.[/quote]

+1. I was on one of the secondaries at HLS. I probably got a few pro forma questions about the journal at OCI, but it's universally understood (especially at big firms) that the whole legal scholarship enterprise is a sham and that a student's work on a journal has no merit other than firming up one's Blue Book skills. And even that is useless for non-litigators. So interviewers don't really care about journal work. As for me, I was eventually an articles editor but presently I don't have the slightest memory of what the articles I edited were about.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:For employers that really, truly do require law review (i.e., probably Wachtell,) a secondary probably isn't going to cut it.

WLRK places little emphasis on law review.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:For employers that really, truly do require law review (i.e., probably Wachtell,) a secondary probably isn't going to cut it.

I'll read the rest of the thread in the minute, but I couldn't help noticing the appropriateness of my handle to this statement (ignoring the absurd qualifier you threw in there).

Tautology wrote:

ToTransferOrNot wrote:For employers that really, truly do require law review (i.e., probably Wachtell,) a secondary probably isn't going to cut it.

I'll read the rest of the thread in the minute, but I couldn't help noticing the appropriateness of my handle to this statement (ignoring the absurd qualifier you threw in there).

except that, in context, not really. There are firms out there that won't look at an applicant who isn't law review. There are firms out there that expect some kind of journal--law review will be better, secondary avoids the auto-ding. Firms of both stripes will employ the same law journal language.

Now go diaf.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:

Tautology wrote:

ToTransferOrNot wrote:For employers that really, truly do require law review (i.e., probably Wachtell,) a secondary probably isn't going to cut it.

I'll read the rest of the thread in the minute, but I couldn't help noticing the appropriateness of my handle to this statement (ignoring the absurd qualifier you threw in there).

except that, in context, not really. There are firms out there that won't look at an applicant who isn't law review. There are firms out there that expect some kind of journal--law review will be better, secondary avoids the auto-ding. Firms of both stripes will employ the same law journal language.

Now go diaf.

I really don't think context saves the statement from being a trivial tautology. Obviously firms that require law review require law review (whether or not they exist). I just found the statement amusing for that reason.

I'll build the fire tomorrow.

Anonymous User wrote:

ToTransferOrNot wrote:For employers that really, truly do require law review (i.e., probably Wachtell,) a secondary probably isn't going to cut it.

WLRK places little emphasis on law review.

I was just about to say this. I think one of the biggest misunderstandings on this website is the difference between firms that focus on transactional work and firms that focus on litigation. It's actually more of a distinct difference than it is made out to be on this website. The two types of firms often have some pretty different things that they look for in a prospective hire--emphasis on law review being one of them (really working on a journal just isn't something that is going to make or break you at a transactional focused firm. While at a lit focused one it could be do or die. For the much vaunted "V10" being on a journal really isn't a prerequisite since the majority of those firms focus on transactional) . In terms of the "prestige" of the firms this matters as well. Saying "I want to work at a V5" while simultaneosly being very interested in litigation doesn't make a lot of sense. However, making that same statement while being interested in transactional work makes a lot of sense.