Should I Take the Journal Offer? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I go to a T50 and my grades are not great (at all), but I must have done well enough on my note because I somehow pulled offers from two secondary journal offers. While I'm very excited about this, I'm trying to decide if joining one of these journals would really impress employers as much as other things (like making sure I increase my grades because I have more free time).

These journals are definitely related to what I'm interested in working on. However, they are also fairly new (one has been running for 7 years and the other has been running for 9 years).

Given this information, would you recommend taking one of the journal offers to improve my writing skills/impress employers? Or would you recommend declining the offers and just focusing on grades instead?

[09042014]

Journal doesn't improve your writing.

Take the offer and just half ass everything. There typically isn't a ton of work on secondary journals.

[lolwat]

Journal may not directly improve your writing but it looks good on a resume (or, rather, not having a journal looks bad--either way you look at it, you pretty much want a journal on there).

I can't really fathom why you can't be on a journal AND pull up your grades. There are more than enough hours in the day to do journal + other extracurriculars + classes + study for classes and still have a life. Especially if you aren't on the ed. board. I think the time commitment for the secondary journal I was on, if you weren't on the editorial board, was a couple hours every few weeks. The only way I can see there not being enough time is if you're doing part-time legal work or something, in which case I would say the work experience outweighs the benefits of being on a journal.

[Anonymous User]

Being on a journal sucks balls. Don't do it. And don't make it more miserable for everyone else by half-assing it. This is anonymous because I'm on the Ed. Board of my journal.

[09042014]

Being on a journal sucks balls. Don't do it. And don't make it more miserable for everyone else by half-assing it. This is anonymous because I'm on the Ed. Board of my journal.

Sorry but ed boards are basically enemy combatants. It's our duty to make your lives hell. I'm sorry, in another life we could have been comrades!

[Anonymous User]

OP here-Thanks for the replies.

Do you all think it matters that the journals aren't very old? Do employers particularly care about that when it comes to secondary journals?

[lolwat]

I think unless the secondary journal is something like the technology law journal at Berkeley, it really doesn't matter. Employers probably won't know what the details are.

Also, I'm not disagreeing with all of the people that say that journal sucks balls, but I still think you should do it for the resume boost given your credentials otherwise.

[tfer2222]

Journal may not directly improve your writing but it looks good on a resume (or, rather, not having a journal looks bad--either way you look at it, you pretty much want a journal on there).

[Anonymous User]

OP here-Awesome, thanks again for the replies. Just one last question.

I'm sure it depends on the journal, but do you normally get to chose what you want to write about as a 2L or are you mostly editing/citation checking for 3L students?

[A. Nony Mouse]

This may vary, but basically as a 2L you will always be cite-checking (student or faculty notes) and writing your own note, which can be on whatever you like as long as it's within the journal parameters (e.g. if it's a business journal you have to have some tie to business). The only thing is if your journal has some kind of "X Circuit report" or the like, you could conceivably get assigned a case to summarize/report on. Otherwise you write about what you like (as a 3L, you don't generally have to write about anything, unless you get published).

[sparty99]

Don't do journal. The only thing that matters are your grades. I would accept the offer, have journal on your resume, and then quit when school starts.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Don't do journal. The only thing that matters are your grades. I would accept the offer, have journal on your resume, and then quit when school starts.

Yeah, don't do this. Take it or don't, but don't be a misrepresenting asshole about it. (I've also heard of schools that would make you contact all your interviewing firms to update that you quit the journal. Maybe they wouldn't care, but I think that makes you look bad.)

[Icculus]

Don't do journal. The only thing that matters are your grades. I would accept the offer, have journal on your resume, and then quit when school starts.

Journals will often inform firms if you do this.

[Scotusnerd]

Congrats. Do the journal. Don't be a slacker about it either. Lawyers may or may not care about journal, but you definitely do not want an employer hearing about how you sluffed it off and the editor had to have other people edit behind you to pick up your slack work.

Either do it and put in a good effort or don't do it. Don't halfass stuff.

[UVAIce]

Congrats. Do the journal. Don't be a slacker about it either. Lawyers may or may not care about journal, but you definitely do not want an employer hearing about how you sluffed it off and the editor had to have other people edit behind you to pick up your slack work.

Either do it and put in a good effort or don't do it. Don't halfass stuff.

Not that I advocate slacking off, but what kind of an editor goes through the effort to find out where a particular journal member is looking to work and then contacts that employer to badmouth the journal member! I'm kind of happy I don't go to your school as I have a feeling you've seen this happen.

[Anonymous User]

It's all about the way of the middle effort. You don't have to gun journal work like it's a graded exam, but don't be a dick to your peers and completely blow everything off.

Journal work really isn't that bad. Take the journal. It's not gonna make much of a difference on your resume but it can't hurt.

[09042014]

Congrats. Do the journal. Don't be a slacker about it either. Lawyers may or may not care about journal, but you definitely do not want an employer hearing about how you sluffed it off and the editor had to have other people edit behind you to pick up your slack work.

Either do it and put in a good effort or don't do it. Don't halfass stuff.

Not that I advocate slacking off, but what kind of an editor goes through the effort to find out where a particular journal member is looking to work and then contacts that employer to badmouth the journal member! I'm kind of happy I don't go to your school as I have a feeling you've seen this happen.

It wouldn't happen. Especially since the journal member can retaliate in kind. I'd report them on a fake rape charge.

[UVAIce]

Congrats. Do the journal. Don't be a slacker about it either. Lawyers may or may not care about journal, but you definitely do not want an employer hearing about how you sluffed it off and the editor had to have other people edit behind you to pick up your slack work.

Either do it and put in a good effort or don't do it. Don't halfass stuff.

Not that I advocate slacking off, but what kind of an editor goes through the effort to find out where a particular journal member is looking to work and then contacts that employer to badmouth the journal member! I'm kind of happy I don't go to your school as I have a feeling you've seen this happen.

It wouldn't happen. Especially since the journal member can retaliate in kind. I'd report them on a fake rape charge.

If this were ever to happen it would be fairly epic, but I'm fairly certain no editor is going to go to those lengths. They're going to go over your work anyways, they are not going to blow a gasket because you failed to correct a double space after a period in a footnote. #LawReviewSuicide

[Scotusnerd]

Y'all are over-analyzing this. Just do the work and turn it in on time. I'm not saying OP should run to a phone booth and become Superstudent, but they should turn decent work in on time.

Sheesh.

[Myself]

.

[sparty99]

Don't do it. It will do nothing for you. You would be better off doing an externship for credit. How would they even know what firms you applied to?

I have prior WE and barely got big law interviews because I was below-median. I was not on journal, but did have Moot Court on my resume. Only one firm asked about it. The only journal you should do is law review. If it aint law review, then don't waste your time.