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I recently got an offer from vault firm. I am wondering if I should put in effort to have my note published.
Is there any downside to not writing a note if i don't want clerkship?

I mean, most journals require you to at least write something as part of your membership; if you don't do it, they kick you from the journal. If there's anything that would justify a no-offer after your SA, that would be it.

As far as actually getting it published though - not much of a benefit if you don't want a clerkship, no. It's a nice line on the firm bio page, particularly if you can write something for LR that touches on your ultimate area of practice, but I question how much those lines really matter.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:I mean, most journals require you to at least write something as part of your membership; if you don't do it, they kick you from the journal. If there's anything that would justify a no-offer after your SA, that would be it.

As far as actually getting it published though - not much of a benefit if you don't want a clerkship, no. It's a nice line on the firm bio page, particularly if you can write something for LR that touches on your ultimate area of practice, but I question how much those lines really matter.

my journal doesn't require any writing though. The only thing i need to do is footnote.
So assuming i don't get kicked out for not writing, i should be fine?

Anonymous User wrote:

ToTransferOrNot wrote:I mean, most journals require you to at least write something as part of your membership; if you don't do it, they kick you from the journal. If there's anything that would justify a no-offer after your SA, that would be it.

As far as actually getting it published though - not much of a benefit if you don't want a clerkship, no. It's a nice line on the firm bio page, particularly if you can write something for LR that touches on your ultimate area of practice, but I question how much those lines really matter.

my journal doesn't require any writing though. The only thing i need to do is footnote.
So assuming i don't get kicked out for not writing, i should be fine?

I guess the other thing would be to see whether writing a note would take care of whatever post-1L writing requirement you have (it did at my school). If you don't want to have to write a paper for a class, doing it for the journal could make sense.

Otherwise I don't see why it would matter.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

ToTransferOrNot wrote:I mean, most journals require you to at least write something as part of your membership; if you don't do it, they kick you from the journal. If there's anything that would justify a no-offer after your SA, that would be it.

As far as actually getting it published though - not much of a benefit if you don't want a clerkship, no. It's a nice line on the firm bio page, particularly if you can write something for LR that touches on your ultimate area of practice, but I question how much those lines really matter.

my journal doesn't require any writing though. The only thing i need to do is footnote.
So assuming i don't get kicked out for not writing, i should be fine?

I guess the other thing would be to see whether writing a note would take care of whatever post-1L writing requirement you have (it did at my school). If you don't want to have to write a paper for a class, doing it for the journal could make sense.

Otherwise I don't see why it would matter.

Note can be a tiny boost in clerkship apps but its often not worth the time to get it published. If you can get a non-note published in a journal (a full article), then its a much bigger deal.

Meh, when you're dealing with clerkship apps, every boost is worth it; the process is vicious (and I would take issue with it being only a "small boost" in that you'll stand out negatively for not having one and, from experience, judges will discuss your writing sample with you in interviews). But OP isn't interested in clerkships, so they only thing you're losing out on is the nominal value of the line on the firm bio page.

Some firms don't even have that level of detail for associate bios. See: hughes hubbard.

Once you have that offer, just get B's and CRUSH it in the summer, and you will be fine so long as no double dip and you didn't pick a firm that has a low offer rate.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:Meh, when you're dealing with clerkship apps, every boost is worth it; the process is vicious (and I would take issue with it being only a "small boost" in that you'll stand out negatively for not having one and, from experience, judges will discuss your writing sample with you in interviews). But OP isn't interested in clerkships, so they only thing you're losing out on is the nominal value of the line on the firm bio page.

Stand out negatively for not having one? Most people I know with fed. clerkships didn't even bother with it. Connections >>>>>>>>> Grades >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> everything else for a clerkship really. I get that any boost helps, but you have to draw a line somewhere.

The majority of the people you know with fed clerkships didn't bother writing a note, or didn't bother to have it published?

ToTransferOrNot wrote:The majority of the people you know with fed clerkships didn't bother writing a note, or didn't bother to have it published?

Getting it published. Notes are required here for LR and most journals.

k, just checking. I was just saying that it would stand out in a bad way to not have a note at all. The feeders probably care whether they're published, but yeah, publication doesn't seem to matter a huge amount for most judges.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:k, just checking. I was just saying that it would stand out in a bad way to not have a note at all. The feeders probably care whether they're published, but yeah, publication doesn't seem to matter a huge amount for most judges.

Yea, good call - probably didn't read your post well. I don't think about the big feeder judges as I am in no way even remotely qualified for anything beyond d. ct. level, hah.

Blindmelon wrote:

ToTransferOrNot wrote:k, just checking. I was just saying that it would stand out in a bad way to not have a note at all. The feeders probably care whether they're published, but yeah, publication doesn't seem to matter a huge amount for most judges.

Yea, good call - probably didn't read your post well. I don't think about the big feeder judges as I am in no way even remotely qualified for anything beyond d. ct. level, hah.

Ah. Heck, at the d.ct level, a lot of people think you should use practical work product instead of a note anyway.

If you want to be an academic, it'll help. If you want to clerk it'll maybe have some marginal benefit. Otherwise it's a complete waste of time.

Renzo wrote:If you want to be an academic, it'll help. If you want to clerk it'll maybe have some marginal benefit. Otherwise it's a complete waste of time.

No one cares about your student note on the academic market, unless it's a ridiculously good/breakout note (see, e.g., the "note" written by Leroy Hirschel that basically served as the foundation for Coase's "Social Cost" article) - or so I've been told.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:

Renzo wrote:If you want to be an academic, it'll help. If you want to clerk it'll maybe have some marginal benefit. Otherwise it's a complete waste of time.

No one cares about your student note on the academic market, unless it's a ridiculously good/breakout note (see, e.g., the "note" written by Leroy Hirschel that basically served as the foundation for Coase's "Social Cost" article) - or so I've been told.

It's true. But more is always better than fewer publications, and it can help you stake out a tiny little niche in the field for yourself.

For the OP it's probably not worthwhile because it's not required, he already has an offer, and he has no further ambitions for which writing the Note will help.

As a general matter though, I don't see why it would be worth writing a Note (especially if you're required to do it already) but not worth trying to get it published, unless you're foregoing getting it published as a Note in hopes of getting it accepted as a full article elsewhere. You're putting in fairly substantial time on all the research and writing to begin with, it doesn't take that much more effort to make it of publishable quality. Whether it gets accepted is another matter.

Although, I guess I did read a bunch of terrible notes that still passed for credit on my secondary journal (because that requirement is minimal) so maybe for some people it would take a lot more effort to make it good. Shrug!