Law Review Derailment Thread Forum

[Anonymous User]

Those who aren’t at elite schools should take some of these comments with a grain of salt.

If you’re from a lower ranked school, law review is very important and a huge advantage regardless of whether you’re going into Corp or Lit.

Sincerely,
T65, top 20%, law review, V5 Corp next year.

Those who are at elite schools should take some of these comments with a grain of salt.

I've been involved in many hiring decisions for many highly competitive legal jobs, and law review has uniformly been the single paper criterion that has mattered the most after grades, recommendations, and individual awards. It's undoubtedly true that many in hiring don't particular care about law review, but many do. I don't see that changing any time soon, contrary to what some of the other posters here imply. And after grades, recommendations, and individual awards (about which not everyone cares either), I'm not sure if there's anything else that comes particularly close. Maybe clinic, assuming you did a directly relevant clinic?

So please know when you read the commenters here decrying the importance of law review, that you're getting (a) a view that genuinely reflects one held by many in the field -- but that is not anywhere close to being universal (or even a majority view); and (b) arguments about law review that are often more prescriptive than descriptive.

What do you mean by "paper criterion"? From elite schools, law review matters less than post-grad employment, clerkships, grades, recommendations (to include TA/RA work), any individual awards (to include writing awards and moot court awards), and publications in reputable journals. Maybe clinic / pro bono also, depending on the program. It matters more than any other extracurricular, but extracurriculars count for little generally.

I'm the poster to whom you were responding. By "paper criterion," I meant criterion that shows up in the paper file of a candidate -- i.e., excluding interview impressions. And I thought it would be clear from my post that I meant law school paper criterion (because we're talking about the choices that people make in law school -- and also because what and how you do in law school mostly determines what you do after law school. Clerkships matter more, but you have to earn a clerkship through your law school performance.).

Also, I think law review matters far, far, far, far, far more than publications, unless maybe we're talking about a top-25 flagship non-note publication (in which case I'd say it still matters a medium amount more) -- or if we're talking about for purposes of getting a law professor position (in which case publications matter significantly more than anything else, including grades, but academia just has different hiring criteria in general). I'd wager that publications are less important to most non-academia hiring employers than moot court, which is less important to most hiring employers than law review.

To slightly restate my point, for current elite law school students, after your grades, recommendations, and whatever individual awards you earn, law review is the #1 thing you can do in school to improve your chance of getting hired in a competitive position, with no particular close #2 outside maybe of doing a clinic in a closely related field. And within the realm of individual recognitions, I think law review recognitions mostly trump non-law review recognitions. On balance, for example, I think the EIC of HLR or YLJ generally has more doors opened by virtue of that position than does the winner of the HYS moot court contest. Ditto for the e-board of SLR vs the e-board of Stanford Moot Court competition.

[Anonymous User]

I'm the poster to whom you were responding. By "paper criterion," I meant criterion that shows up in the paper file of a candidate -- i.e., excluding interview impressions. And I thought it would be clear from my post that I meant law school paper criterion (because we're talking about the choices that people make in law school -- and also because what and how you do in law school mostly determines what you do after law school. Clerkships matter more, but you have to earn a clerkship through your law school performance.).

Which competitive jobs are we talking about here, specifically? My anecdotal experience from a T6 is completely inconsistent with your anecdotal experience.

[Anonymous User]

Those who aren’t at elite schools should take some of these comments with a grain of salt.

If you’re from a lower ranked school, law review is very important and a huge advantage regardless of whether you’re going into Corp or Lit.

Sincerely,
T65, top 20%, law review, V5 Corp next year.

Those who are at elite schools should take some of these comments with a grain of salt.

I've been involved in many hiring decisions for many highly competitive legal jobs, and law review has uniformly been the single paper criterion that has mattered the most after grades, recommendations, and individual awards. It's undoubtedly true that many in hiring don't particular care about law review, but many do. I don't see that changing any time soon, contrary to what some of the other posters here imply. And after grades, recommendations, and individual awards (about which not everyone cares either), I'm not sure if there's anything else that comes particularly close. Maybe clinic, assuming you did a directly relevant clinic?

So please know when you read the commenters here decrying the importance of law review, that you're getting (a) a view that genuinely reflects one held by many in the field -- but that is not anywhere close to being universal (or even a majority view); and (b) arguments about law review that are often more prescriptive than descriptive.

What do you mean by "paper criterion"? From elite schools, law review matters less than post-grad employment, clerkships, grades, recommendations (to include TA/RA work), any individual awards (to include writing awards and moot court awards), and publications in reputable journals. Maybe clinic / pro bono also, depending on the program. It matters more than any other extracurricular, but extracurriculars count for little generally.

I'm the poster to whom you were responding. By "paper criterion," I meant criterion that shows up in the paper file of a candidate -- i.e., excluding interview impressions. And I thought it would be clear from my post that I meant law school paper criterion (because we're talking about the choices that people make in law school -- and also because what and how you do in law school mostly determines what you do after law school. Clerkships matter more, but you have to earn a clerkship through your law school performance.).

Also, I think law review matters far, far, far, far, far more than publications, unless maybe we're talking about a top-25 flagship non-note publication (in which case I'd say it still matters a medium amount more) -- or if we're talking about for purposes of getting a law professor position (in which case publications matter significantly more than anything else, including grades, but academia just has different hiring criteria in general). I'd wager that publications are less important to most non-academia hiring employers than moot court, which is less important to most hiring employers than law review.

To slightly restate my point, for current elite law school students, after your grades, recommendations, and whatever individual awards you earn, law review is the #1 thing you can do in school to improve your chance of getting hired in a competitive position, with no particular close #2 outside maybe of doing a clinic in a closely related field. And within the realm of individual recognitions, I think law review recognitions mostly trump non-law review recognitions. On balance, for example, I think the EIC of HLR or YLJ generally has more doors opened by virtue of that position than does the winner of the HYS moot court contest. Ditto for the e-board of SLR vs the e-board of Stanford Moot Court competition.

This doesn't match my experience at all, at least if by "competitive jobs" you mean clerkships, competitive PI fellowships, elite lit boutiques, and academia. Publishing a good note in a HYS flagship surely trumps being a law review member editor; publishing an article in a top-25 flagship trumps virtually any pre-graduation accomplishment I can think of. I'd caution against overvaluing law review e-board positions - I've not seen them move the needle much, and their prestige usually comes with added time commitments. For the record, I'd also caution against trying to rank-order law review positions across law schools. At HLS the most ambitious students target EIC; at SLS, they target Senior Articles and Senior Notes Editor; YLS has idiosyncrasies well known to those on the Journal.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah at Chicago the EIC and EE are less in-demand jobs than executive articles or comments, and maybe even plain old AE/ME/CE. They're brutal, GPA-ruining jobs with a ton of work, most of it non-substantive. Similarly, moot court at Chicago is not a big deal--as a 2L it clashes with the LR comment deadline, as a 3L you've already got a clerkship, so tons of top students skip it--schools have idiosyncrasies.

Also, publishing in a T25 flagship as a law student is basically unheard of. It just doesn't happen, except for maybe for some JD/Ph.D. students with more time to write, and it would be a huge gold star if someone did it. Publishing in any flagship as a student is very, very rare. Like not remotely comparable to just being on LR. Though that said, a bad or trite article (regardless of venue) would be a turn-off for me when hiring (though I'm just a snobby ex-AE who's probably not representative).

[Anonymous User]

Deleted because I should not have named my school.

[Anonymous User]

The worst part about the holistic LR process isn't that it doesn't help the best students. We have their transcripts. They'll be fine. It's that it makes completely arbitrary distinctions among the groups it's supposed to help.

[RedNewJersey]

Is LR still generally even considered prestigious at most "top schools"? *** This round, none of the individuals at the top of the class are on LR. It's noticeable. *** Just don't know if it makes sense to think of LR as being prestigious anymore.

At my HYS, this would be really surprising. Holistic review has definitely changed the game, but the median GPA is still way higher on LR.

[Anonymous User]

I think it’s much, much more likely that your perception of who the “top students” are is wrong than that most of them are not on LR.

[Anonymous User]

I’m at a T6 and have top (5-10%) grades, but was essentially excluded from LR since I transferred here. I know the same is true for many of the other students in my transfer cohort.

[Anonymous User]

I’m at a T6 and have top (5-10%) grades, but was essentially excluded from LR since I transferred here. I know the same is true for many of the other students in my transfer cohort.

That's always been the case. Also, not to knock your achievements, but you are not top 10% grade at the T6.

[Anonymous User]

TBF, they could be a 3L and have grades at their T6. But I don’t think transfer students are a big enough group really to affect any overall conclusions about LR and what it means.

If someone’s talking about LR and top students after the fact, and their school does Coif or other class-rank-based awards, it is pretty easy to see which top students were/weren’t on LR. That said, while it’s not a perfect match, most top students at my school were also on LR (admittedly definitely not a T6). But my school was also almost entirely write-on (grades were a very very minor consideration) so the overlap was never going to be perfect.

I think the inertia of LR being a brass ring is never going to go away entirely. How much weight it’s given is going to depend on the eye of the beholder.

[Anonymous User]

TBF, they could be a 3L and have grades at their T6. But I don’t think transfer students are a big enough group really to affect any overall conclusions about LR and what it means.

If someone’s talking about LR and top students after the fact, and their school does Coif or other class-rank-based awards, it is pretty easy to see which top students were/weren’t on LR. That said, while it’s not a perfect match, most top students at my school were also on LR (admittedly definitely not a T6). But my school was also almost entirely write-on (grades were a very very minor consideration) so the overlap was never going to be perfect.

I think the inertia of LR being a brass ring is never going to go away entirely. How much weight it’s given is going to depend on the eye of the beholder.

If they are a 3L then 1) 3Ls don't make LR, that determination is made earlier and 2) how exactly would you define top 10% without 1L grades? Since curves change and uncurved classes exist (not to mention LLM students + other students not caring about grades anymore), having a top 10% ranking based on non 1L classes compared to the student body including 1L grades isn't a true top 10%. If I could count only my post 1L grades I'd also be top 10%.

Also you say your school was write on. Do you know if that's still true? My school was mostly grades, but ppl in this thread have said it's different now.

[Anonymous User]

TBF, they could be a 3L and have grades at their T6. But I don’t think transfer students are a big enough group really to affect any overall conclusions about LR and what it means.

If someone’s talking about LR and top students after the fact, and their school does Coif or other class-rank-based awards, it is pretty easy to see which top students were/weren’t on LR. That said, while it’s not a perfect match, most top students at my school were also on LR (admittedly definitely not a T6). But my school was also almost entirely write-on (grades were a very very minor consideration) so the overlap was never going to be perfect.

I think the inertia of LR being a brass ring is never going to go away entirely. How much weight it’s given is going to depend on the eye of the beholder.

If they are a 3L then 1) 3Ls don't make LR, that determination is made earlier and 2) how exactly would you define top 10% without 1L grades? Since curves change and uncurved classes exist (not to mention LLM students + other students not caring about grades anymore), having a top 10% ranking based on non 1L classes compared to the student body including 1L grades isn't a true top 10%. If I could count only my post 1L grades I'd also be top 10%.

Also you say your school was write on. Do you know if that's still true? My school was mostly grades, but ppl in this thread have said it's different now.

Eh, I think it’s fine if a transfer student who has top 10% grades even just during 2L and 3L says they have top 10% grades. If you want to label their GPA with a great big red T for TRANSFER!!!! that’s fine. I’m sure your school has policies in place to make sure transfers don’t claim anything they’re not entitled to.

(Re: not making LR, I know 3Ls don’t join LR. 3Ls don’t transfer, either. They didn’t say they were excluded from LR this year/as a 3L, just that they didn’t have the opportunity to join LR, which could have been last year as a 2L, and then they got a year of grades.)

Re my law school, apparently now applicants “may” submit personal statements and the board “may” consider those statements. No idea what impact that’s actually had or even how many alumni are aware of the change. (I checked the website or wouldn’t have known.)

[Anonymous User]

Removed

[Anonymous User]

TBF, they could be a 3L and have grades at their T6. But I don’t think transfer students are a big enough group really to affect any overall conclusions about LR and what it means.

If someone’s talking about LR and top students after the fact, and their school does Coif or other class-rank-based awards, it is pretty easy to see which top students were/weren’t on LR. That said, while it’s not a perfect match, most top students at my school were also on LR (admittedly definitely not a T6). But my school was also almost entirely write-on (grades were a very very minor consideration) so the overlap was never going to be perfect.

I think the inertia of LR being a brass ring is never going to go away entirely. How much weight it’s given is going to depend on the eye of the beholder.

If they are a 3L then 1) 3Ls don't make LR, that determination is made earlier and 2) how exactly would you define top 10% without 1L grades? Since curves change and uncurved classes exist (not to mention LLM students + other students not caring about grades anymore), having a top 10% ranking based on non 1L classes compared to the student body including 1L grades isn't a true top 10%. If I could count only my post 1L grades I'd also be top 10%.

Also you say your school was write on. Do you know if that's still true? My school was mostly grades, but ppl in this thread have said it's different now.

Eh, I think it’s fine if a transfer student who has top 10% grades even just during 2L and 3L says they have top 10% grades. If you want to label their GPA with a great big red T for TRANSFER!!!! that’s fine. I’m sure your school has policies in place to make sure transfers don’t claim anything they’re not entitled to.

(Re: not making LR, I know 3Ls don’t join LR. 3Ls don’t transfer, either. They didn’t say they were excluded from LR this year/as a 3L, just that they didn’t have the opportunity to join LR, which could have been last year as a 2L, and then they got a year of grades.)

Re my law school, apparently now applicants “may” submit personal statements and the board “may” consider those statements. No idea what impact that’s actually had or even how many alumni are aware of the change. (I checked the website or wouldn’t have known.)

I don't have a problem with them putting top 10% on resume or whatever. All I'm saying is that it's unlikely an example of being snubbed despite deserving based on grades. Transfers shouldn't have a scarlet letter, but you still need to compare apples to apples.

[Anonymous User]

Oh got it, I agree with that. Someone transfers knowing they’re not going to have the chance to apply for LR (if that’s the case at a given school) and that they have to give up the chance at that signal, whatever it’s worth. And I don’t think the presence of transfer students with top grades really alters whether at given school “most” top students are on law review or aren’t.

[Anonymous User]

I think it’s much, much more likely that your perception of who the “top students” are is wrong than that most of them are not on LR.

Why? A lot of top students were not on LR at my T6. That was easily confirmed by looking at honors.

[Anonymous User]

I'm the poster to whom you were responding. By "paper criterion," I meant criterion that shows up in the paper file of a candidate -- i.e., excluding interview impressions. And I thought it would be clear from my post that I meant law school paper criterion (because we're talking about the choices that people make in law school -- and also because what and how you do in law school mostly determines what you do after law school. Clerkships matter more, but you have to earn a clerkship through your law school performance.).

Which competitive jobs are we talking about here, specifically? My anecdotal experience from a T6 is completely inconsistent with your anecdotal experience.

Federal clerkships, boutique law firms, and elite impact PI positions, all of which I've hired for. One of my judges cared about publications -- and is well known as a judge who cares about those sorts of things -- but (s)he still cared more about law review (as in being a law review editor > publishing a note; being on the law review e-board > publishing an impressive note). Nobody else in any non-academia position I've ever hired for -- and there's been a bunch -- cared about publications at all. Having a note in HYS would have literally moved the needle zero with any of the various interviewing/hiring people in question. (Having a T25 flagship publication might have mattered, at least if it was in a somewhat related field, but as another poster pointed out, that's basically unheard of.)

Incidentally, my sense was that journal membership was an actual or de facto requirement for publishing a note in most journals -- so even where this matters, it's a + you only (or primarily) get if you do law review.

These thing are different for academia. You get a tenure-track non-clinical position by publishing well in a field for which schools are hiring in that year. In terms of things that you can control, that's pretty much it short of clerking for SCOTUS or being the EIC of HYS law review.

[Anonymous User]

Federal clerkships, boutique law firms, and elite impact PI positions, all of which I've hired for.

Again, I have no idea what you are talking about. Most of the COA clerks I know were not on LR, people have no problem getting boutique jobs (although I think Susman does prefer LR), etc.

Your anecdotal experience is your experience, but it is not widely shared IMO, even among the feeder/prestige clerks I know.

[Anonymous User]

I think it’s much, much more likely that your perception of who the “top students” are is wrong than that most of them are not on LR.

Why? A lot of top students were not on LR at my T6. That was easily confirmed by looking at honors.

Some? Sure, that happens even at grade-on schools for whatever reason. Most? No way.

Also, lol @ the idea that feeders don’t care about LR/journal or (especially non-note) publications. Again, some? Sure, especially conservative ones. Most? No way. A lot of wishful thinking ITT.

[Anonymous User]

I'm the poster to whom you were responding. By "paper criterion," I meant criterion that shows up in the paper file of a candidate -- i.e., excluding interview impressions. And I thought it would be clear from my post that I meant law school paper criterion (because we're talking about the choices that people make in law school -- and also because what and how you do in law school mostly determines what you do after law school. Clerkships matter more, but you have to earn a clerkship through your law school performance.).

Which competitive jobs are we talking about here, specifically? My anecdotal experience from a T6 is completely inconsistent with your anecdotal experience.

Federal clerkships, boutique law firms, and elite impact PI positions, all of which I've hired for. One of my judges cared about publications -- and is well known as a judge who cares about those sorts of things -- but (s)he still cared more about law review (as in being a law review editor > publishing a note; being on the law review e-board > publishing an impressive note). Nobody else in any non-academia position I've ever hired for -- and there's been a bunch -- cared about publications at all. Having a note in HYS would have literally moved the needle zero with any of the various interviewing/hiring people in question. (Having a T25 flagship publication might have mattered, at least if it was in a somewhat related field, but as another poster pointed out, that's basically unheard of.)

Incidentally, my sense was that journal membership was an actual or de facto requirement for publishing a note in most journals -- so even where this matters, it's a + you only (or primarily) get if you do law review.

These thing are different for academia. You get a tenure-track non-clinical position by publishing well in a field for which schools are hiring in that year. In terms of things that you can control, that's pretty much it short of clerking for SCOTUS or being the EIC of HYS law review.

Without questioning your personal experiences, I share the previous poster's curiosity. I've never met an employer who didn't care about HYS flagship notes, and the notion that an article in a T25 flagship "might" matter only if "it was in a somewhat related field" is totally inconceivable. Any publication in a T25 law journal by a law student is exponentially more impressive than any law review accolade.

I'd also challenge you on some points of fact. It's no longer true that journal membership is an "actual or de facto requirement for publishing a note." Of the T6, only HLS requires law review membership. Publishing as a non-journal member is common at YLS, for example. Clerking for SCOTUS and being EIC of a HYS law review are no longer the most important "things you can control" when it comes to academia. The most important thing is getting an elite PhD. Law review is far down the list. Finally, students targeting academia do not try to become EIC at HYS. They usually run for articles selection jobs instead.

[Anonymous User]

I don’t think that’s quite right re: publishing at the T6 journals—at Chicago, the very small group of non-editor students (1-2 per year) who submit publishable notes get to become LR members, but in general those notes don’t actually get published (and even if they do the authors would also be editors at that point, and thus would have both credentials).

[Anonymous User]

Federal clerkships, boutique law firms, and elite impact PI positions, all of which I've hired for.

Again, I have no idea what you are talking about. Most of the COA clerks I know were not on LR, people have no problem getting boutique jobs (although I think Susman does prefer LR), etc.

Your anecdotal experience is your experience, but it is not widely shared IMO, even among the feeder/prestige clerks I know.

You're arguing against a straw man. I didn't say that law review was a prerequisite for any of these things. I didn't even say it was the most helpful paper criterion. It's undoubtedly not. As I said, I think that law school + grades + recommendations all matter more.

My point was that law review matters as a hiring credential, contra to what some of the other posters here have suggested, and that's true whether you went to an elite school or a non-elite school. And my point was that it matters more than any other paper hiring credentials besides probably law school + grades + recommendations.

I'm sure there are plenty of COA clerks, people in boutique jobs, etc. who did not do law review. I hired some of them.

[Anonymous User]

I don’t think that’s quite right re: publishing at the T6 journals—at Chicago, the very small group of non-editor students (1-2 per year) who submit publishable notes get to become LR members, but in general those notes don’t actually get published (and even if they do the authors would also be editors at that point, and thus would have both credentials).

Is that an option for 3Ls or only for 2Ls? At my T14 you could "note on" the law review but only if you submitted during 2L year.

[Anonymous User]

Without questioning your personal experiences, I share the previous poster's curiosity. I've never met an employer who didn't care about HYS flagship notes, and the notion that an article in a T25 flagship "might" matter only if "it was in a somewhat related field" is totally inconceivable. Any publication in a T25 law journal by a law student is exponentially more impressive than any law review accolade.

I'd also challenge you on some points of fact. It's no longer true that journal membership is an "actual or de facto requirement for publishing a note." Of the T6, only HLS requires law review membership. Publishing as a non-journal member is common at YLS, for example. Clerking for SCOTUS and being EIC of a HYS law review are no longer the most important "things you can control" when it comes to academia. The most important thing is getting an elite PhD. Law review is far down the list. Finally, students targeting academia do not try to become EIC at HYS. They usually run for articles selection jobs instead.

I agree with you that notes should matter more, but I've met few employers outside of academia (and the one federal judge) who cared. There's a lot of contempt for academia in practice, and a general perception that getting a note published -- especially in YLJ -- isn't particularly competitive. I agree with you also that landing a T25 or T50 or honestly probably T100 flagship article placement as a student should matter, especially if it's in a related field. In my experience, though, most employers outside of some judges don't really know what to make of this and don't place that much weight on this sort of endeavor. (This is a somewhat moot point because I think it is probably harder to place an article in a T50 journal as a current student than to do pretty much anything else we're discussing, including make law review and be elected to EIC or Articles Chair.)

Re journal membership, that would be news to me if law reviews are regularly publishing notes from non-members who didn't write on (therefore becoming a member). If I'm wrong about that, I apologize -- it doesn't significantly impact any of my other points.

Finally, I strongly disagree with your point about a PhD and academia, although this is now taking us down a path that's mostly irrelevant to the broader discussion. (Hiring committees are going to select a candidate who has published well over a candidate who has an elite PhD, all else equal, 9 times out of 10.) Note: I've never claimed that law review is a particularly helpful credential for getting a tenure-track non-clinical position.