Law Review & Secondary Journal Forum

[ineptimusprime]

Am I really setting myself back if I don't do law review or a journal?

[jrf12886]

No one "wants" to do Law Review. I would suggest attempting the write-on.

[homestyle28]

No one "wants" to do Law Review. I would suggest attempting the write-on.

[dixon02]

Secondary journals are a pretty minimal time commitment (although the image you have is exactly what you do). If you scout them out right and get one without much work, you could easily spend <20 hours over the next two years on journals. That's worth the line on the resume. Just do the tryout.

[kalvano]

Unless you're at a highly ranked school, suck it up, buttercup.

[kapital98]

Secondary journals are a pretty minimal time commitment (although the image you have is exactly what you do). If you scout them out right and get one without much work, you could easily spend <20 hours over the next two years on journals. That's worth the line on the resume. Just do the tryout.

This. I'm almost done with all my journal duties this year and the footnote editing only took 5-7 hours. The note is what you make of it. It could take you 3 hours or 20 depending on the quality you wish to submit.

On the bright side, once you go into practice at a small firm citations won't really matter. Most trial judges give a considerable amount of discretion. They may find your citations annoying but, as long as they are coherent, they won't damn you. (For the record: I'm not suggesting you don't learn how to cite. I'm just saying it's not crucial.)

[ineptimusprime]

Additional question:

The packet of reading materials is ~300 pages. Is this standard? The few people at other schools I've talked to said their material wasn't nearly as long (around 100 pages). I don't mean to bitch too much, but 300 additional pages of reading smack dab in the middle of the semester seems pretty extreme.

[09042014]

If you suck at LWR and hate bluebook, I wouldn't even bother doing the write on. You won't get it. If you are planning on doing moot court, I'd just opt out of journal.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Additional question:

The packet of reading materials is ~300 pages. Is this standard? The few people at other schools I've talked to said their material wasn't nearly as long (around 100 pages). I don't mean to bitch too much, but 300 additional pages of reading smack dab in the middle of the semester seems pretty extreme.

Ours was 800 (though not during the semester; immediately after finals).

[Richie Tenenbaum]

If you are reading the entire packet, you're probably doing it wrong.

[jess]

.

[ineptimusprime]

Well, luckily I haven't started yet or I probably would have done it wrong.

It sounds like I should do it, but half ass it since my odds aren't great anyway.

[Robert Paulson]

Well, luckily I haven't started yet or I probably would have done it wrong.

It sounds like I should do it, but half ass it since my odds aren't great anyway.

This sounds like a really dumb idea.

[09042014]

Well, luckily I haven't started yet or I probably would have done it wrong.

It sounds like I should do it, but half ass it since my odds aren't great anyway.

This sounds like a really dumb idea.

Depends on if he wants a secondary J, and how hard those secondary J's are.

At northwestern, if you aren't going to gun the shit out of write on, half assing is fine.

[zomginternets]

That said, I can't imagine paying dues for an unpaid part-time job which basically consists of X-treme bluebooking

Paying law review dues?! As in, you give the law review money?? I've never heard of this, and I hope to God this isn't standard practice at other schools..

[09042014]

That said, I can't imagine paying dues for an unpaid part-time job which basically consists of X-treme bluebooking

Paying law review dues?! As in, you give the law review money?? I've never heard of this, and I hope to God this isn't standard practice at other schools..

Yea that is crazy. I've never heard of that.

My journal pays me in dominoes and "borrowed" office supplies.

[ilovesf]

That said, I can't imagine paying dues for an unpaid part-time job which basically consists of X-treme bluebooking

Paying law review dues?! As in, you give the law review money?? I've never heard of this, and I hope to God this isn't standard practice at other schools..

We had to pay something like $100. I only found out about that after accepting. Not cool at all. That is one of the reasons I take as much free/low price stuff as possible from there.

[A. Nony Mouse]

We totally had dues. (They paid for our snacks and our banquet at the end of the year, not operating expenses.) State school where the state now provides something like 8% of the money needed to run the place, yo.

And I definitely didn't read 800 pp of stuff - probably at least 150 was a massive ALR on a relevant topic, I definitely didn't read that. You just had to figure out what was in the packet to be able to decide what you wanted to write about and therefore did have to read. (Heck, when I graded the write-on, we had someone submit a casenote - they didn't get accepted, but not really because they only wrote on about 2% of the packet.)

[ineptimusprime]

Well, luckily I haven't started yet or I probably would have done it wrong.

It sounds like I should do it, but half ass it since my odds aren't great anyway.

This sounds like a really dumb idea.

Good thing I was just being snarky then, right?

If I decide to do it, I'll do my best.

[Robert Paulson]

Well, luckily I haven't started yet or I probably would have done it wrong.

It sounds like I should do it, but half ass it since my odds aren't great anyway.

This sounds like a really dumb idea.

Good thing I was just being snarky then, right?

If I decide to do it, I'll do my best.

haha. Yeah, that seems like TCR.

[Redamon1]

Unless you're at a highly ranked school, suck it up, buttercup.

Can you say more? I'm at T10, on secondary journal already and debating whether to do the law review write-on competition. Seems to be all about the preffstige. I.e. I don't think there's anything I would learn on LR that I wouldn't learn on my secondary journal (which is pretty demanding BTW). One view I've heard is that unless you want to do academia, at the end of the day LR is not really a deciding factor for employers -- all other things being equal.

[Jsa725]

.

[09042014]

Too many write-oners strike out for it to be some huge deal.

[kalvano]

Unless you're at a highly ranked school, suck it up, buttercup.

Can you say more? I'm at T10, on secondary journal already and debating whether to do the law review write-on competition. Seems to be all about the preffstige. I.e. I don't think there's anything I would learn on LR that I wouldn't learn on my secondary journal (which is pretty demanding BTW). One view I've heard is that unless you want to do academia, at the end of the day LR is not really a deciding factor for employers -- all other things being equal.

No one cares about what you learn. It's about the prestige level. If you're at Yale or Harvard, the prestige of the school is enough for a lot of people.

I can't speak to how it works at your school, but why would you turn down any opportunity to differentiate yourself unless you already have a job lined up post-grad? LR is shitty work. Everyone knows it. But having it on your resume is generally a really good thing.

In other words, of course it's all about the prestige. Why are you at a T10 instead of a TTT? Same reason: a more prestigious school gives you more and better opportunities than a less prestigious one.

Suck it up, buttercup.

[Redamon1]

Yeah, it's nice to have a reality check. Thanks for your thoughts. I guess I just wonder at what point you can give up on the rat race while still being OK. But that's a bigger existential question I guess...