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I have been fortunate enough to receive and accept an offer with my top choice firm. Is there any reason to accept my invitation to a secondary journal (I am a transfer student). My school does not give credit for journal work.

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Yes.

Your offer is just for the summer, right? Until you hit permanent employment (a historical 100% offer rate at a firm is still not permanent employment in my view) I suggest you continue to do everything you can to make your resume look better.

If it's a nearly 100% offer firm, I'd avoid journal work if you don't want to do it. Why jump through pointless hoops?

Were you applying for jobs with journal selection on your resume? If yes, seems pretty sketchy to not follow through.

Just do it !!!!!

goaheadualright wrote:Just do it !!!!!

You got this

Journal has absolutely zero value at this point. Even if you get no-offered, no place is going to ask you about your journal experience when you have an actual firm on your resume. No place asked me about the journal on my resume at all.

Of course, this might be a little different if you plan on clerking. (In which case, lack of journal can still be mitigated by making a submission)

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Journal is awful and if I were you in your position, I'd seriously consider not doing it.

100 x No. But if you decide to (like I unfortunately did), stay far away from boards.

After getting no offered, I'm pretty happy that I took the time 2L year to rise to leadership positions in my extracurriculars.

rinkrat19 wrote:Were you applying for jobs with journal selection on your resume? If yes, seems pretty sketchy to not follow through.

this is pretty key here. was it on your resume when you applied? if so- do it. if not- nope nope nope nope nope (UNLESS you've got nothing else on your law school plate)

I would recommend doing it. You are never asked about your Journal, but not having one in some cases -> resume in trash.

That is to say, having a Journal on the rezzie is the ticket into the interview. At that point, they do not give a shit b/c every other person being interviewed is on a journal.

Keep in kind that it's easy as shit to publish in a secondary, so it takes minimal effort to make it look shin on your resume. But journal is still the worst part of law school IMO.

I might do it since it's an SA offer, not a permanent one. Depends how much work, esp since you don't get credit.
If it was a permanent offer then definitely not

I would also add something no one else has in favor of the "do it"- for all the nonsense you have to go through, you learn a lot, or at least I did. Felt much more confident going into my SA knowing I had a lot of experience researching, writing, and citing. I say do it.

homestyle28 wrote:Keep in kind that it's easy as shit to publish in a secondary, so it takes minimal effort to make it look shin on your resume. But journal is still the worst part of law school IMO.

This isn't true everywhere. Lots of secondaries don't publish students work at all, and many only publish 1-2 notes per year and don't even (officially) limit their selections to submissions from their own staff.

OP, being on a journal blows serious chunks and is a huge time suck, but some employers see it as a prerequisite to getting a screener. If you decide to do it, don't get wrapped up in trying to get a high-ranking position, because it's way too much work and nobody cares whether you were the Editor in Chief or the Sanitation Engineer of the Random Law School Journal of Veterinary Transactions or whatever.

Journals are the worst kind of h*ll. Don't do it. You'd rather be unemployed.

DO NOT DO SECONDARY JOURNAL!

Unless it is a content you want to be on.