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Unemployed 3L who recently ran into a very well-respected prof who has many connections in a specialized area of law I am interested in. The prof was shocked I didn't have a full time job after graduation and offered to help out (TT/TTT, top 10%... its not that shocking).

She initially asked for my resume and writing sample. After I gave her my writing sample, she remembered that she "helped" me and wanted to send my note along to people she knew in practice as well as my current writing sample. She really didn't help, I took a class with her in the subject-area I was writing on and we talked about my note a couple times casually.

Anyway, my 2L law review note is not my best work. I had no ambitions of getting published and just wanted credit. To make matters worse, when I started writing my note (in Fall 2011), my thesis tackled a "hot" emerging issue; however, this "hot" issue flamed out quickly and is now non-controversial, settled law. Also, the position I advocated for in the note is wrong -- even the one court whose reasoning I based my note on reversed itself 4 months after I turned the note in.

I want to give the professor a cleaned-up version of my note, but I do not know if I can change my thesis and call it my law review note. I was thinking about adding a disclaimer at the beginning stating that I was aware of the change in the law, and that the only court that supported my argument, reversed itself to align itself with all of the other courts in the country on the issue, but feel that it would reflect poorly on my legal reasoning abilities.

I have no good ideas about how to deal with this so any suggestions would be more than appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Honestly, I would tell her all the reasons you've just given for not being happy with the note, and let her decide whether she still wants to see it. You have to avoid sounding like you're being defensive/making excuses, and make clear you're simply assessing the note on its actual merits. But most faculty are familiar with the experience of having what seemed like a promising line of research fizzle out (especially once the courts resolve the issue), so if you can couch it in those terms, she'll understand. Or, if you'd rather try to revise it to deal with these issues, just explain to her why/how you've revised it since you originally spoke with her about it - it's still okay to give it to people as your "law review note" even if you revise it, especially since it wasn't published so it's not like you're recanting something that's out in public in another form.