Quitting journal after accepting SA offer Forum

[Anonymous User]

Anyone ever done it? Not necessarily law review either. I'm interested in hearing if anyone has quit their secondary journal to avoid the nonsensical busy work after locking down a biglaw SA job. Do you have to inform your firm? Will they care?

[BullShitWithBravado]

I didn't personally but I know of one person who quit journal and the firm didn't care. If you decide to quit, you should probably tell your firm in case your journal decides to call up your firm. Alternatively, you could just stay on the journal and do the bare minimum amount of work.

[mr.hands]

Journals treat this differently. If you do quit, definitely tell the firm. If they get a call out of the blue from your journal that looks bad. Getting out in front of it and letting the firm know would minimize some of that harm

[kalvano]

Whether a firm cares is directly related to the firm in question. You're anonymous so call out the firm, because otherwise you're talking about thousands of possible firms.

[patogordo]

Whether a firm cares is directly related to the firm in question. You're anonymous so call out the firm, because otherwise you're talking about thousands of possible firms.

that might out him though. just give him a table of answers for each firm.

[B.B. Homemaker]

[FKASunny]

This is very relevant to my interests

[pattonthicke]

1. Check with your journal--at my school, if we got kicked off or quit journal we had to inform firms/places where we were going to go work.

2. Just do really crappy work bruh. It doesnt take that long and at most schools they wont kick you off for doing crappy work

3. Will firm care??? They probably wont care whether or not you are on a journal, if your summer is 100% smooth sailing it wont matter either probably, but if you get a bad review from someone them maybe they remember you quit journal and this may be a possible red flag-----im just speculating but idk, just turn in crappy work---journal took me like a total of 25 hours my whole 2L year.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

I have heard of someone who got an offer revoked for getting kicked off LR for not doing any work midway through the year. I don't know the person firsthand so I can't confirm that story's veracity, and I don't know whether it would be any different for a secondary journal.

Law students usually love doing this utility-maximization calculus (e.g. doing the work after you already have an offer provides no marginal benefit), but I would be very, very careful. Presumably the firm took positive note of your journal (based on the fact that they ask anyone who isn't on one why they're not) assuming you were going to put a good-faith effort into it. I'm guessing they wouldn't like that you misled them to save a few hours off your week, and this kind of shit has a way of getting back to firms somehow.

[B.B. Homemaker]

This is very relevant to my interests

just assumed it was you to begin with

[TheThriller]

This is very relevant to my interests

Don't leave me on this journal alone

[baal hadad]

Just do a shit job

[Anonymous User]

I was on a secondary journal 2L year. I'm a 3L now and just quit the journal after getting a permanent offer after 2L SA. Do I still have to tell the firm?

[splitsplat]

this depends on your journal/school. some schools will contact your employer and/or put a notation on your transcript. whether your firm cares is another story.

[Frayed Knot]

I don't know if this matters to you, but it does suck for the other people on the journal. The work that you would have done doesn't go away—someone else is stuck with those same footnotes that you would have read. And (for almost all journals) you took up a spot that someone else wanted/would have filled, reducing the work for everyone else.

[Anonymous User]

I was on secondary journal and quit after accepting 2L SA last fall bc it was the most miserable useless experience ever. They made me tell my firm, which was mad awkward but they didn't give a fuck. Did good this summer and got an offer to come back.

[Mal Reynolds]

If you didn't have the balls not to do journal before OCI you deserve to stay on it you spineless idiots.

[zugzwanger]

Despite me complaining a lot about journal work taking up a lot of time etc., I think if I was hiring at a firm and I found out someone quit after I gave them an offer it'd piss me off...

[Anonymous User]

I was the 3L above who quit journal after getting offer after 2L summer. I never told the journal what firm I was working for (I'm pretty sure the school doesn't even know). Do journals at other schools actually know where you work and stuff? I'm thinking about joining another journal, as I quit the last one because it was entirely unrelated to what I will be doing.

[mr.hands]

I was the 3L above who quit journal after getting offer after 2L summer. I never told the journal what firm I was working for (I'm pretty sure the school doesn't even know). Do journals at other schools actually know where you work and stuff? I'm thinking about joining another journal, as I quit the last one because it was entirely unrelated to what I will be doing.

That's an inane reason to quit journal. There is no journal that helps you with what you will be doing. They aren't geared towards that.

Most CSOs know where their students are. If you never told them and your firm didn't report the offer to them, I guess they wouldn't know. That seems odd though

[Anonymous User]

I'm on a journal that had a 2L do that this year. The EIC had to tell the CDO and student affairs. Aside from pissing the EIC and the 3Ls off it pissed off a bunch of 2Ls who ranked the journal high and didn't get on it. It also screws over the rest of the journal members who now have to do more work. It's a stupid idea and it makes you look lazy and immature. The excuse was it was "more work than [he/she] expected." He/she should have thought about that before going through the writing comp and taking a spot on a journal.

[Anonymous User]

I was the 3L above who quit journal after getting offer after 2L summer. I never told the journal what firm I was working for (I'm pretty sure the school doesn't even know). Do journals at other schools actually know where you work and stuff? I'm thinking about joining another journal, as I quit the last one because it was entirely unrelated to what I will be doing.

That's an inane reason to quit journal. There is no journal that helps you with what you will be doing. They aren't geared towards that.

Most CSOs know where their students are. If you never told them and your firm didn't report the offer to them, I guess they wouldn't know. That seems odd though

Ugh looks like I'm fucked. I guess I should drop out now.

[Danger Zone]

I'm on a journal that had a 2L do that this year. The EIC had to tell the CDO and student affairs. Aside from pissing the EIC and the 3Ls off it pissed off a bunch of 2Ls who ranked the journal high and didn't get on it. It also screws over the rest of the journal members who now have to do more work. It's a stupid idea and it makes you look lazy and immature. The excuse was it was "more work than [he/she] expected." He/she should have thought about that before going through the writing comp and taking a spot on a journal.

You're just jealous.

[BaiAilian2013]

Despite me complaining a lot about journal work taking up a lot of time etc., I think if I was hiring at a firm and I found out someone quit after I gave them an offer it'd piss me off...

Same. Everyone knows journal is the stupidest thing ever, but it just makes you look shady.

[20141023]

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