Publishing while working BIGLAW Forum

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone done this? I know time is a scarce commodity in biglaw, but aside from that, how did you find a topic/issue to write on?

In LS I was more connected to legal academia b/c i was working on a journal, but now I don't even know what is being discussed or how to find a relevant topic.

Working in corporate and want to be published just so i can keep my options open. Any tips on the best way to go about this?

[Snuffles1]

When you say you want to publish to keep your options open, do you mean academia or something else? How carefully you'll want to choose your topic (as well as the publication venue you'll want to aim for) will vary accordingly.

[Anonymous User]

OP

Academia would be awesome, but also just getting published seems like it would help if I wanted to pursue a clerkship (which seems like a good way to transition to a diff field of law if I want to go that route)

[Snuffles1]

Fair enough. I can't really speak to the kinds of publication that would be helpful for clerking, but I imagine you have some flexibility there both wrt subject and venue (popular news source, trade publications, law review, even peer review).

As far as academia is concerned, if you're hoping this will help you on the main tenure-track path I'd make two observations: (1) you want to choose your topic carefully since it should jive with whatever you're positioning yourself to teach, and (2) there are a whole host of factors that will matter as much as (and in some cases more than) your publication history for making you "academia-eligible." A different way of putting that is that publication is necessary but not sufficient to open up academia -- it's almost impossible to stumble sideways into academia these days, it takes a lot of planning and a hell of a lot of good luck -- unless your end goal is to adjunct once in a while (in which case I doubt you really need publications) or eventually go to clinical teaching (in which case your accumulated experience and the publications relating to that experience will matter more than any early stage unrelated publications you push out now).

[Anonymous User]

Fair enough. I can't really speak to the kinds of publication that would be helpful for clerking, but I imagine you have some flexibility there both wrt subject and venue (popular news source, trade publications, law review, even peer review).

As far as academia is concerned, if you're hoping this will help you on the main tenure-track path I'd make two observations: (1) you want to choose your topic carefully since it should jive with whatever you're positioning yourself to teach, and (2) there are a whole host of factors that will matter as much as (and in some cases more than) your publication history for making you "academia-eligible." A different way of putting that is that publication is necessary but not sufficient to open up academia -- it's almost impossible to stumble sideways into academia these days, it takes a lot of planning and a hell of a lot of good luck -- unless your end goal is to adjunct once in a while (in which case I doubt you really need publications) or eventually go to clinical teaching (in which case your accumulated experience and the publications relating to that experience will matter more than any early stage unrelated publications you push out now).

Thanks, this is really helpful.

[Snuffles1]

No problem!

[Jchance]

How about teaching while working in BigLaw, for example, adjunct at local law school--how do people find the time to do it? Do partners look at you suspiciously?

[KD35]

How about teaching while working in BigLaw, for example, adjunct at local law school--how do people find the time to do it? Do partners look at you suspiciously?

Multiple firms I interviewed w in major markets encouraged this cuz it looks good on the firm and is a good experience for young associates

[Jchance]

a good experience for young associates

Why would teaching be "good experience"?!?

[JusticeJackson]

.

[Anonymous User]

I have published. I actually find it easier than in law school, where I would spend months trying to think of a topic, because topics will often fall in your lap. I worked on two pitches for an utterly untouched area of law. We didn't get the matters, but I turned the 20 pages of research memos I did into law review articles. The problem is that it takes time to do an article, so you'll have to spend some long nights with limited sleep. A second problem is that your firm will want to review it with a fine-tooth comb to make sure it isn't cited as exhibit 1 in an opposition's motion. For one of my articles, the "global head" of a practice group at my firm (who I had never heard of or met) ended up reviewing my submission and editing it substantially because he often took the opposite position based on a few clients of his that I had no reason to know about. As a result, my articles describe the law, but don't really advocate too much.

OP Here.

This is interesting. Was there a reason why you had to run this by your firm? Is that standard procedure?

I'm in corporate, and I wasn't planning on writing on any specific deal. I work in a Silicon Valley practice with lots of emerging growth companies, etc. I was thinking of writing something about issues that have surfaced in our field generally but without writing about a specific case or deal. Think I would need to run this all by the firm nonetheless?

[Br3v]

Your point is correct that academia is a long road, but this is an incorrect statement:

[T]here are a whole host of factors that will matter as much as (and in some cases more than) your publication history for making you "academia-eligible."

Publication history is the most important factor. There are basically two types of academia candidates. Those who went to HYSChi, and those who did not. Publication record is going to be the number one factor for both types.

[JusticeJackson]

.

[20160810]

Publishing articles is definitely possible and will look good for you at review time and if you ever choose to lateral, so definitely do this. I actually recommend starting working on one immediately after you begin at the firm. You're going to be slow for a month or so before you get staffed on projects, so why not use that time productively instead of browsing reddit?

[KD35]

Publishing articles is definitely possible and will look good for you at review time and if you ever choose to lateral, so definitely do this. I actually recommend starting working on one immediately after you begin at the firm. You're going to be slow for a month or so before you get staffed on projects, so why not use that time productively instead of browsing reddit?

I'd imagine it also looks good as you are going up the ranks in a firm, and not just when you want to lateral.