Fail Law Review? Forum

[tsutsik]

Law review is pass/fail. I don't plan on failing, but at the moment I'm not feeling so hot about my note. Anyone have any idea how craptastic a law review note needs to be before they fail you?

[LSATNightmares]

Law review is pass/fail. I don't plan on failing, but at the moment I'm not feeling so hot about my note. Anyone have any idea how craptastic a law review note needs to be before they fail you?

Who doesn't feel that way? Everyone I talk with thinks they're going to be preempted. You don't have to do an awesome job just to get credit.

[Gorki]

Law review is pass/fail. I don't plan on failing, but at the moment I'm not feeling so hot about my note. Anyone have any idea how craptastic a law review note needs to be before they fail you?

I guess it varies by school. Where I am a shit note that meets the rubric is a Pass, just do not expect it to get you a lot of pull if you are gunning for board positions.

[shock259]

I think most journals have a 3 strike system (my secondary journal does). You get a strike for not turning something, turning it in late, or turning in a horrendously crappy product.

Not sure how this applies to notes. But I seriously doubt you can fail.

[ph14]

Law review is pass/fail. I don't plan on failing, but at the moment I'm not feeling so hot about my note. Anyone have any idea how craptastic a law review note needs to be before they fail you?

Why don't you ask people on your law review. I'm sure it varies widely. We don't get credit for ours, unfortunately, so we don't really have to worry about it.

[zomginternets]

You're a 2L doing a note. They're not expecting you to produce Chemerinsky-quality work. The expectations for getting publish I'm sure vary widely between LRs, but I doubt getting a passing grade for LR requires more than a good faith effort (and meeting minimum length/footnote requirements). The fact that you are even worried about it likely means that you are doing more than what's needed to get a pass.

[CanadianWolf]

The above post correctly assessed your situation as one who worries this much has most likely produced a sufficient work product.

[Ludo!]

Look up the bylaws for your journal, it should say what the process is for denying someone credit. At my school it was pretty difficult for then to fail you (had to get 2/3 of all members to vote on it).

[thesealocust]

I solemnly swear in my future in the legal industry to recommend for hire without regards to other qualification every applicant who ever comes before me with an F or discharge from law review.

So if it hurts you now, I'll hire you later.

[Miller32]

Law review is pass/fail. I don't plan on failing, but at the moment I'm not feeling so hot about my note. Anyone have any idea how craptastic a law review note needs to be before they fail you?

I guess it varies by school. Where I am a shit note that meets the rubric is a Pass, just do not expect it to get you a lot of pull if you are gunning for board positions.

Do yourself a favor and do not gun for a LR board position.

[deebs]

I turned mine in writing the requisite 10-15 pages at each separate point and not reading the entire thing through the entire 50 some pages until I proofread it a few hours before it was due. I passed. FWIW, I saw my notes editor at a bar and she told me mine was the worst by far. I spent a maximum of 50 hours on it. Nothing they can say when your bluebooks are correct, and you only have one or two grammar mistakes. "Oh my analysis was terrible, there was no flow, and my arguments are flawed... guess I'm just not going to get published."

If you really want, to get an idea of how bad they can be, I can send you my note on the tax implications of the diablo iii real money auction house and whether phat loots are taxable in your inventory.

[NotMyRealName09]

My law review had this requirement where the student note had to meet "publishable quality" standards, and the standard was set so that something like 50% of all notes submitted would not meet the standard at first, automatically. If you didn't pass that standard at first, you then had to edit it over the summer, being attentive to the critiques. I suspect no one, ever, failed my law review because of this publishable quality bullshit. It was an excercise is bullshiterry.

While I'm happy I made law review, and can say the senior editors did good work, it was, like so many other student organizations, a bunch of stupid bullshit taken far too seriously by those who ran it. Don't be that person, on law review or in life. I can safely say the effort spent by the board members far outweighed any benefit they gained.

[tsutsik]

I solemnly swear in my future in the legal industry to recommend for hire without regards to other qualification every applicant who ever comes before me with an F or discharge from law review.

So if it hurts you now, I'll hire you later.

This seems like a pretty terrific deal.

[Perseus_I]

Law review is pass/fail. I don't plan on failing, but at the moment I'm not feeling so hot about my note. Anyone have any idea how craptastic a law review note needs to be before they fail you?

I guess it varies by school. Where I am a shit note that meets the rubric is a Pass, just do not expect it to get you a lot of pull if you are gunning for board positions.

Do yourself a favor and do not gun for a LR board position.

Why?

[Ludo!]

Law review is pass/fail. I don't plan on failing, but at the moment I'm not feeling so hot about my note. Anyone have any idea how craptastic a law review note needs to be before they fail you?

I guess it varies by school. Where I am a shit note that meets the rubric is a Pass, just do not expect it to get you a lot of pull if you are gunning for board positions.

Do yourself a favor and do not gun for a LR board position.

Why?

No benefit, will make your 3l year a living hell.

[Perseus_I]

Well I am all about benefits and avoiding extra work. LR Ed Board really, truly, has no benefit, even for clerkships and fed gov't jobs?

[Ludo!]

Well I am all about benefits and avoiding extra work. LR Ed Board really, truly, has no benefit, even for clerkships and fed gov't jobs?

I'm overstating it a bit. For clerkships there probably is a benefit to being EIC or other high position

[howell]

Look up the bylaws for your journal, it should say what the process is for denying someone credit.

Agree with this. Every law review/journal is different. Also try to find out if anyone has been denied credit before. You normally just have to meet technical requirements (it's difficult to prove that your arguments, application, etc. sucked objectively compared to that of your peers). Just follow the rules, turn things in on time, and you will be fine.

I was a member of the editorial board, and we almost tried to deny credit to one student. The student really did not deserve a passing grade and deserved to have the hammer dropped, but we just did not have the time to do it. So it's possible that those in the position to initiate action against you either won't have the time or the heart to do so.

At our school, whether or not you got published didn't affect whether you could get a board position. As long as your note wasn't atrocious (i.e., not calling into question your ability to follow rules and/or understand legal arguments), it never came up in the board selection process. And knowing the board selection process might also be helpful if you're looking for a position on the board - some schools let 2Ls vote, others just have the editorial board pick.

For most people, a board position outside of EIC is a waste of time, but there are exceptions. For JAG and certain government positions, leadership positions are favored. I got my current non-legal job partially by spinning my experience of managing 70ish people during the publication process. But for normal law firm jobs, no one cares.

ETA: For students outside of the top 14/20/25 schools (I can't remember the cutoff), a board position is one way to qualify to apply for some fed agency honors programs. I thought it was silly when I saw it, but technically that would be a benefit.

[Ludo!]

I was a member of the editorial board, and we almost tried to deny credit to one student. The student really did not deserve a passing grade and deserved to have the hammer dropped, but we just did not have the time to do it.

What did they do?

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Well I am all about benefits and avoiding extra work. LR Ed Board really, truly, has no benefit, even for clerkships and fed gov't jobs?

I'm overstating it a bit. For clerkships there probably is a benefit to being EIC or other high position

Ed board can be fairly important for people gunning for circuit court clerkships.

[howell]

I was a member of the editorial board, and we almost tried to deny credit to one student. The student really did not deserve a passing grade and deserved to have the hammer dropped, but we just did not have the time to do it.

What did they do?

Overall, it was terrible. I could have taken 30 minutes and cleaned up 95% of the spelling and grammar errors in the note (as could have an 8th grader). This is after it had gone through our student writing process which involves multiple edits of their notes along the way. Yet there were still many horrible errors. We also had length requirements (X pages at Y spacing) and a required footnote-to-text ratio, and it was clear the student just repeated sections (with a little rewording) to meet the length requirement. To meet the footnote ratio requirement, the student would just drop a new footnote and continue talking about the subject in the footnote - not citing a damn thing, just reiterating what had been said earlier. Beyond spelling and grammar, the writing itself was poor, and the legal research and analysis was a complete mess.

It was a case of the student not caring at all. At times, when grading notes, we would think "Stupid, or just lazy?" but this student had made it clear from other actions that it was laziness. At most 4 hours of work would have resulted in a note that would not have raised any alarms with me. It certainly wouldn't have been published, but it wouldn't have been called out for being substantially below the standard.

[Ludo!]

I was a member of the editorial board, and we almost tried to deny credit to one student. The student really did not deserve a passing grade and deserved to have the hammer dropped, but we just did not have the time to do it.

What did they do?

Overall, it was terrible. I could have taken 30 minutes and cleaned up 95% of the spelling and grammar errors in the note (as could have an 8th grader). This is after it had gone through our student writing process which involves multiple edits of their notes along the way. Yet there were still many horrible errors. We also had length requirements (X pages at Y spacing) and a required footnote-to-text ratio, and it was clear the student just repeated sections (with a little rewording) to meet the length requirement. To meet the footnote ratio requirement, the student would just drop a new footnote and continue talking about the subject in the footnote - not citing a damn thing, just reiterating what had been said earlier. Beyond spelling and grammar, the writing itself was poor, and the legal research and analysis was a complete mess.

It was a case of the student not caring at all. At times, when grading notes, we would think "Stupid, or just lazy?" but this student had made it clear from other actions that it was laziness. At most 4 hours of work would have resulted in a note that would not have raised any alarms with me. It certainly wouldn't have been published, but it wouldn't have been called out for being substantially below the standard.

That guy is my hero. Glad you didn't fail him.

[Count Chocula]

Law review is pass/fail. I don't plan on failing, but at the moment I'm not feeling so hot about my note. Anyone have any idea how craptastic a law review note needs to be before they fail you?

rofl

[Gorki]

Law review is pass/fail. I don't plan on failing, but at the moment I'm not feeling so hot about my note. Anyone have any idea how craptastic a law review note needs to be before they fail you?

rofl

Credited first post.

I am unsure whether everyone in my LR is writing amazing notes, or they are all just bluffing about how much they care about their note and LR in general. = /

[hiima3L]

At my school I never heard of anyone caring at all about your Note product because it doesn't affect anyone else. It's only not doing work that affects other people that matters.

Of course, if you're an asshole you can get failed and/or kicked off. I know a few people who this happened to.