Top Law Schools

Hey TLS,

So, I have a note topic selected for journal, and I'm hunting for an adviser. I recently ran into a strange quandary. Possibly the best adviser for the topic I've selected is a faculty member who I found out, late at the end of 1L, was my second cousin. Is this too much of a conflict for me to ask him to be my note adviser?

Edit: FWIW, I think I'm probably having thanksgiving at his house.

lmfaox100.

On the chance this is not a joke topic, you definitely should give 0 care to this and just work on the paper.

I'm not considering switching topic, the question is, do I ask my second cousin to be the adviser (since he's the best fit), or do I go to another professor?

Idk how it works at your school, but at mine this wouldn't have mattered at all.

You can always just ask him if he thinks it's a conflict of interest.

Please explain what about the note process would make it a conflict of interest. Does he decide if it gets published or not?

kalvano wrote:Please explain what about the note process would make it a conflict of interest. Does he decide if it gets published or not?

He grades it (or, rather, the independent study related to writing it).

That wouldn't be a conflict of interest.

Maybe a problem with bias, but not conflict of interest.

Network connection brah

sach1282 wrote:

kalvano wrote:Please explain what about the note process would make it a conflict of interest. Does he decide if it gets published or not?

He grades it (or, rather, the independent study related to writing it).

This is for law review? That's weird. Is it not simply a completion grade or pass / fail?

A second cousin that you never knew existed before last year is the functional equivalent of a complete stranger. So I wouldn't think there's a conflict. But let him decide.

In every state I think you can marry a second cousin

I think you're good