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Assuming very good grades but no law review at a regional school how much will not being on law review hurt and does it make sense to do a secondary journal. Thanks in advance.

It will hurt a LOT less than doing law review. That shit suuuuuucks.

But for real -- its probably something that will come up if your grades are good enough that you should be on. If your grades are good but not amazing then the interviewers will just assume you didn't make it on which won't hurt/help anymore than your grades themselves.

My understanding is that secondary journals do not help at all, but not having anything might hurt you. Personally, I would recommend working a few days a week during the semester because you can get class credit, gain real experience, and have a reason not to do a journal.

It will likely be the situation where my grades are good enough that I should have been on. Is there any good way to explain it. They will probably assume I can't write well right.

lawhopeful10 wrote:It will likely be the situation where my grades are good enough that I should have been on. Is there any good way to explain it. They will probably assume I can't write well right.

Probably. Or they might miss it. Don't bring it up, your best strategy is to hope that they don't think about not having law review. You could also try to interview early at the few firms that do that and get an offer now - a lot of schools haven't announced law review results. If you're interviewing early, your lack of law review might not even get noticed because everyone will assume that law review isn't out yet.

sap wrote:

lawhopeful10 wrote:It will likely be the situation where my grades are good enough that I should have been on. Is there any good way to explain it. They will probably assume I can't write well right.

Probably. Or they might miss it. Don't bring it up, your best strategy is to hope that they don't think about not having law review. You could also try to interview early at the few firms that do that and get an offer now - a lot of schools haven't announced law review results. If you're interviewing early, your lack of law review might not even get noticed because everyone will assume that law review isn't out yet.

Thanks. I'll probably start my mass mailing tomorrow then and just try and get my resume out everywhere.

What do you mean "should have been on"? Does your school have a firm cutoff for grading on where everyone above a certain rank makes it (e.g. top 10%)? If so, why are you not on it if your grades are above that cutoff? Did you not do write-on at all, or did you not meet some minimum threshold of quality for write-on that even the people who grade-on have to hit (e.g. good faith effort)?

I think how firms will see it may depend on how your school handles grade-on.

hoos89 wrote:What do you mean "should have been on"? Does your school have a firm cutoff for grading on where everyone above a certain rank makes it (e.g. top 10%)? If so, why are you not on it if your grades are above that cutoff? Did you not do write-on at all, or did you not meet some minimum threshold of quality for write-on that even the people who grade-on have to hit (e.g. good faith effort)?

I think how firms will see it may depend on how your school handles grade-on.

My school has a write on process that is kinda a black box but they say getting on is some combination of grades, the note, and a bluebook exercise. I don't know how accurate it was but everyone said grades were very important. My grades have me around top 3%ish so I'm guessing everyone who got similar grades will be on it but that is just speculation. There was no automatic grade on though obviously.

You probably won't get invited to as many scholarly banquets.

as others have already pointed out:

UPSIDE: you don't have to do law review

prezidentv8 wrote:as others have already pointed out:

UPSIDE: you don't have to do law review

lol that will be of little comfort if I'm unemployed.

I don't think it will matter. Most firms care exclusively about grades. The only situation that I've seen law review make a real difference was for those with mediocre grades that managed to write on. Top 3% shouldn't have a problem unless you are a bad interviewer.

lawhopeful10 wrote:Assuming very good grades but no law review at a regional school how much will not being on law review hurt and does it make sense to do a secondary journal. Thanks in advance.

Lit or corp?