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It's time for most of us 2L's to make our decision to apply for a position on our law reviews' executive boards.

*What are the benefits of being on the executive board, and what are the drawbacks?
*In your specific case (job desires, school, and general personality traits) is applying to the board a good decision?

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Jessuf wrote:I am interested in this too. I must decide by Sunday.

I am thinking of going for a position that sounds like the least amount of work. Like Marketing Editor......

I have a position that is a ton of work and am really enjoying it so far, FWIW.

alabamabound wrote: I have a position that is a ton of work and am really enjoying it so far, FWIW.

What position? What do you like about it? How is it affecting your other responsibilities?

shepdawg wrote:

alabamabound wrote: I have a position that is a ton of work and am really enjoying it so far, FWIW.

What position? What do you like about it? How is it affecting your other responsibilities?

If he/she already has a lot of work, then the position is probably articles editor or the equivalent. Submissions for next year are already rolling in.

I applied for board positions but only because I struck out at OCI. At least on my journal the executive board positions are a fuckton of work. The ONLY reason anyone should do it is if you don't have a job or want to clerk. If you've got a transactional gig and have no desire to clerk (like most transactional minded peeps I know) then there really is little return for the substantial amount of time you invest.

Being on a board, depending on the position, means you'll get even moar opportunities to develop that "attention to detail" for which we're so well known. Long shot, but maybe if you interview with someone who used to be that person on their journal will give you one more thing to talk about. Better resume fodder.

Drawbacks. You're going to be working harder than a lot of other 3Ls.

For me, I got a smaller firm job through OCI. My firm no-offered their summer last year for economic reasons, so I need to keep my resume swag up.

If you're not trying to clerk and don't enjoy tedious work for journals that publish articles no one reads, then I see little point.

I decided not to run for a board position because of the crap ton of work they do and the little to no resume boost it offers.

Ill be spading and unfortunately writing another note/comment again my 3L year. Maybe i can convince the new EIC to get rid of the TTT writing requirement for 3Ls...

moandersen wrote:I decided not to run for a board position because of the crap ton of work they do and the little to no resume boost it offers.

Ill be spading and unfortunately writing another note/comment again my 3L year. Maybe i can convince the new EIC to get rid of the TTT writing requirement for 3Ls...

Why do you have to write a second note third year? That sounds terrible.

0L here. How do you become Editor-in-Chief at most law schools? Is it a specific position you apply for?

I think being editor-in-chief would be worth it, but I am not sure about the other positions.

Nestico87 wrote:0L here. How do you become Editor-in-Chief at most law schools? Is it a specific position you apply for?

I think being editor-in-chief would be worth it, but I am not sure about the other positions.

This thread should be really helpful for you.

http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 3&t=170599

romothesavior wrote:If you're not trying to clerk and don't enjoy tedious work for journals that publish articles no one reads, then I see little point.

+1 although even if you do enjoy journal work, it's more a question of whether you enjoy doing that more than something else you could be doing instead. I ended up not even running for edboard after (1) our current Exec Editor told me straight out that the position I wanted the most requires a fairly consistent thirty to forty hours of work a week, and (2) talking to people who didn't run for edboard and ended up doing really cool things like traveling, starting joint projects with guys at the business school, etc.

Also, I talked to somebody who graduated roughly a decade ago and didn't run for edboard. He clerked for a COA judge, worked for a V3 in NYC, and is now in academia. Told me that he thinks edboard only really makes a difference if you're gunning for a SCOTUS clerkship. Not sure if that's right, but this guy has more experience with this sort of thing than I do.

TTH wrote:

moandersen wrote:I decided not to run for a board position because of the crap ton of work they do and the little to no resume boost it offers.

Ill be spading and unfortunately writing another note/comment again my 3L year. Maybe i can convince the new EIC to get rid of the TTT writing requirement for 3Ls...

Why do you have to write a second note third year? That sounds terrible.

I wish I knew. Maybe because it makes it more 'fair' considering those on the board take on a ton of work. Sort of evens out the workload to a degree (I guess?) considering we all get the same amount of credits. I would gladly drop a credit in order to get out of writing another note.

Geist13 wrote:

shepdawg wrote:

alabamabound wrote: I have a position that is a ton of work and am really enjoying it so far, FWIW.

What position? What do you like about it? How is it affecting your other responsibilities?

If he/she already has a lot of work, then the position is probably articles editor or the equivalent. Submissions for next year are already rolling in.

I applied for board positions but only because I struck out at OCI. At least on my journal the executive board positions are a fuckton of work. The ONLY reason anyone should do it is if you don't have a job or want to clerk. If you've got a transactional gig and have no desire to clerk (like most transactional minded peeps I know) then there really is little return for the substantial amount of time you invest.

It is AE. I got the job I wanted out of 2L OCI and have no desire to clerk -- being a transactional person who's not interested in moving to DE for a year. I'd dispute that there is little ROI, but that all depends on how you define the R.

shepdawg wrote:

alabamabound wrote: I have a position that is a ton of work and am really enjoying it so far, FWIW.

What position? What do you like about it? How is it affecting your other responsibilities?

What I like about it: it's very satisfying to have ownership of the journal and the people I work closely with are great. The downside is I have very little time to study for classes, but I think that's an acceptable trade-off given my interests and goals.

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alabamabound wrote:I'd dispute that there is little ROI, but that all depends on how you define the R.

I agree. My problem is that I consider legal scholarship to be largely vacuous (likely our point of disagreement). If I thought that law reviews contributed anything substantial, I would recognize more inherent value to participating in and taking charge of the the publication. In other words, I don't see any R other than external career benefits.

I cannot fathom why ANYONE who has a summer job (likely leading to permanent offer) and not looking for a clerkship would want do take on additional boring and meaningless responsibilities? Why?!

need to tag this thread

go on...

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Jessuf wrote:Do editors work over the summer at everyone's schools? They do at my school, which is the biggest turn off for me. I don't really want to get home from my internship and fool around with a boring article all night or drive an hour to campus for the mandatory weekly e-board meeting.

Yeah, I think that some positions on edboard at my school actually have a very big time commitment during the summer.

Helmholtz wrote:

Jessuf wrote:Do editors work over the summer at everyone's schools? They do at my school, which is the biggest turn off for me. I don't really want to get home from my internship and fool around with a boring article all night or drive an hour to campus for the mandatory weekly e-board meeting.

Yeah, I think that some positions on edboard at my school actually have a very big time commitment during the summer.

I know someone got no-offered (supposedly) because of their law review commitment.

IAFG wrote:

Helmholtz wrote:

Jessuf wrote:Do editors work over the summer at everyone's schools? They do at my school, which is the biggest turn off for me. I don't really want to get home from my internship and fool around with a boring article all night or drive an hour to campus for the mandatory weekly e-board meeting.

Yeah, I think that some positions on edboard at my school actually have a very big time commitment during the summer.

I know someone got no-offered (supposedly) because of their law review commitment.

how? Is it because his grades dropped?

Gigaton Punch wrote:

IAFG wrote:

Helmholtz wrote:

Jessuf wrote:Do editors work over the summer at everyone's schools? They do at my school, which is the biggest turn off for me. I don't really want to get home from my internship and fool around with a boring article all night or drive an hour to campus for the mandatory weekly e-board meeting.

Yeah, I think that some positions on edboard at my school actually have a very big time commitment during the summer.

I know someone got no-offered (supposedly) because of their law review commitment.

how? Is it because his grades dropped?

No, because of the summer distractions.

Gigaton Punch wrote:

IAFG wrote:

Helmholtz wrote:

Jessuf wrote:Do editors work over the summer at everyone's schools? They do at my school, which is the biggest turn off for me. I don't really want to get home from my internship and fool around with a boring article all night or drive an hour to campus for the mandatory weekly e-board meeting.

Yeah, I think that some positions on edboard at my school actually have a very big time commitment during the summer.
I know someone got no-offered (supposedly) because of their law review commitment.

how? Is it because his grades dropped?

No, because of the summer distractions.

I'm sure it's happened. What's interesting is that journals can't really do anything to you for doing a poor job. Firms on the other hand...