The write-on thread Forum

[traehekat]

This is really weird. Hastings' competition materials total 9 pages. That's not a typo. 9 pages.

We get 12 days. No editing exercise.

our's isn't too bad either. less than 100 pages of material, plus we get over 3 weeks.

[OGR3]

I'm going to read more cases for the write-on than I did for all of my doctrinal classes combined during spring semester.

[Blindmelon]

Writing competition week was the worst law school week of my life - until I got on law review and had to do a 95 hour work week just on LR copying sources from 3 different languages. So on the bright side, if you don't get law review, at least you won't be as miserable during the year.

Word of advice - your writing style/blue booking > the content if your school's journal is like mine.

[Borhas]

This is really weird. Hastings' competition materials total 9 pages. That's not a typo. 9 pages.

We get 12 days. No editing exercise.

so fucking glad it's not 100+

[cavebat2000]

just to rub it in a little...

Duke only requires a 14 page case note with not very much research. No bluebook exercise required.

Will take me about 4-5 days max.

Enjoy!

[dudders]

So relieved I had to suffer through a 4-day write-on with only 6 pages of writing over Spring Break. It sucked at the time, but who cares, February feels like a year ago.

[FireNextTime]

This is really weird. Hastings' competition materials total 9 pages. That's not a typo. 9 pages.

We get 12 days. No editing exercise.

so fucking glad it's not 100+

On the flip side, we won't get to find out if/what we landed until after we finalize our bids for OCI. So unless I'm wrong about both processes, we won't be able to say that we're on X Journal when we apply for OCI interviews. This seems like a bad thing.

[Borhas]

This is really weird. Hastings' competition materials total 9 pages. That's not a typo. 9 pages.

We get 12 days. No editing exercise.

so fucking glad it's not 100+

On the flip side, we won't get to find out if/what we landed until after we finalize our bids for OCI. So unless I'm wrong about both processes, we won't be able to say that we're on X Journal when we apply for OCI interviews. This seems like a bad thing.

I'm pretty sure you're right. Not sure how I feel about that, but at least you'll know before interviews, and if it turns out that you won't do well enough on the writing comp to make any journals then they couldn't have held it against you in the interview... but then again I imagine in some contexts that risks ending up w/ pointless interviews.

[TTH]

Checking in.

The competition is ten days and it started the day of our last final, which was this past Tuesday. I haven't touched the materials yet (there were something like 20 cases/statutes provided as research). My summer job starts Monday, and I already found out I graded on to our school's "prestigious" secondary journal.

Getting motivated for this thing is impossible going to suck.

[Borhas]

Checking in.

The competition is ten days and it started the day of our last final, which was this past Tuesday. I haven't touched the materials yet (there were something like 20 cases/statutes provided as research). My summer job starts Monday, and I already found out I graded on to our school's "prestigious" secondary journal.

Getting motivated for this thing is impossible going to suck.

can you get on the secondary without writing on? If I was in that position I would not even open the packet

[TTH]

Checking in.

The competition is ten days and it started the day of our last final, which was this past Tuesday. I haven't touched the materials yet (there were something like 20 cases/statutes provided as research). My summer job starts Monday, and I already found out I graded on to our school's "prestigious" secondary journal.

Getting motivated for this thing is impossible going to suck.

can you get on the secondary without writing on? If I was in that position I would not even open the packet

Well, I would still need to do the editing assignment, but I'm guaranteed a spot regardless of how well I do on the editing assignment. My class rank isn't going to be tip-top, so I feel like I need to get the LR credential if I can, but fuck if I don't want to bother with it.

[Holly Golightly]

I am convinced some of our competition rules exist for the sole purpose of making write-on as miserable as possible.

[Borhas]

Checking in.

The competition is ten days and it started the day of our last final, which was this past Tuesday. I haven't touched the materials yet (there were something like 20 cases/statutes provided as research). My summer job starts Monday, and I already found out I graded on to our school's "prestigious" secondary journal.

Getting motivated for this thing is impossible going to suck.

can you get on the secondary without writing on? If I was in that position I would not even open the packet

Well, I would still need to do the editing assignment, but I'm guaranteed a spot regardless of how well I do on the editing assignment. My class rank isn't going to be tip-top, so I feel like I need to get the LR credential if I can, but fuck if I don't want to bother with it.

hmmm I'm not in as good of a position but I feel the same way. Ethically, I feel like I have to give it a decent effort, but really, it's not like I'm going to celebrate working for a journal... I was bummed about not getting on the trial team for that reason, at least then I'd have an excuse, but now I'll just end up looking lazy.

[tarheel87]

I'm a little under median and I was planning on doing the write-on with hopes of landing a secondary journal to help out on the job front. Is it worth it for me to even go through all the effort for write-on if my grades are so low? It makes up a full third of your score so I feel like I'd be starting at a huge disadvantage. Thoughts?

FWIW, I'm looking at local small firm and public interest mostly.

[goodolgil]

I really don't think I can get this thing done in time to apply for the other journals. Everything is due Monday at 5pm and all I've done is written 2/3 of garbage and have done no bluebooking whatsoever (like 40 total sources, I would guess). Since my write-on entry is so bad, this really seems like a bad idea.

[D. H2Oman]

My motto is:


I'm going to lose anyway, so why even try?



I highly recommend this to everyone.

[jkay]

Is it worth it for me to even go through all the effort for write-on if my grades are so low?

Only one thing is guaranteed: if you don't try, you definitely won't make it.

[BarbellDreams]

My motto is:


I'm going to lose anyway, so why even try?



I highly recommend this to everyone.

My exact thoughts.

[Borhas]

I'm a little under median and I was planning on doing the write-on with hopes of landing a secondary journal to help out on the job front. Is it worth it for me to even go through all the effort for write-on if my grades are so low? It makes up a full third of your score so I feel like I'd be starting at a huge disadvantage. Thoughts?

FWIW, I'm looking at local small firm and public interest mostly.

look at the rules in the competition, at my school some of the journals consider grades, some don't consider grades beyond meeting the minimum GPA

[weee]

I'm a little under median and I was planning on doing the write-on with hopes of landing a secondary journal to help out on the job front. Is it worth it for me to even go through all the effort for write-on if my grades are so low? It makes up a full third of your score so I feel like I'd be starting at a huge disadvantage. Thoughts?

FWIW, I'm looking at local small firm and public interest mostly.

look at the rules in the competition, at my school some of the journals consider grades, some don't consider grades beyond meeting the minimum GPA

For example at UCLA out of ~40-50 spots, 6 account for grades as a bonus, the rest are pure write on.

[Holly Golightly]

My motto is:


I'm going to lose anyway, so why even try?



I highly recommend this to everyone.

Do they even let you proles in the PT program participate in write-on?

[keg411]

My motto is:


I'm going to lose anyway, so why even try?



I highly recommend this to everyone.

My exact thoughts.

You should do it, unless your school has grade on.

[kalvano]

Hmm. This may be the first time I feel like I got the easy way for our write-on competition. 4 days, 4-5 page writing exercise (footnotes included in the page count), 3 short editing exercises (but man, can they pack mistakes into them), and 15 BB cites. Each counts for 1/3 of the grade.

Our writing portion is given to us. We don't have to pick a topic, just agree or disagree with the holding in a case and support it.

[TTH]

Hmm. This may be the first time I feel like I got the easy way for our write-on competition. 4 days, 4-5 page writing exercise (footnotes included in the page count), 3 short editing exercises (but man, can they pack mistakes into them), and 15 BB cites. Each counts for 1/3 of the grade.

Our writing portion is given to us. We don't have to pick a topic, just agree or disagree with the holding in a case and support it.

It seems easy, but then that means the curve is just tighter.

I haven't counted pages in my packet (and won't so as to avoid crying), but there were 20 statues/cases in the packet, plus a law review article. All for a ten page paper. FFFFUUUUU

[kalvano]

Well, the editing portion is tricky tricky. Lots of little things hidden.