Top Law Schools

I was recently offered a position to be a staff member on our schools international law journal, not the main law review. Should I accept? Is it worth it?

It can be worthwhile if you get published and/or if you become an editor.

Do you have aspirations to clerk? If yes, do the journal.

Is your resume in desperate need of some beefing up? If yes, do the journal.

These are the things I would consider first. Certainly don't do a journal just for the sake of doing one.

Not to hijack the thread, but I have a question springing from this and may be of use to OP.

Is it reasonable to consider accepting two journal offers if neither of them are law review? Neither of them are likely to be covering the field of work I will be doing after graduation, but it is very possible/probably that I will come in contact with both practice areas covered by the journals over the course of my career. I do also plan to clerk.

IMO, being on two journals would be awful. Cite-checking is bad enough/waste of time and if you strive for a board position it's going to be an even bigger waste of time if you're rocking out on two journals.

Stick to one.

Sup Mo. Going to call you that in real life now, going forward.

Stick to none. It is a waste of time if not law review. The only people who care (and it is a remote care) is big law. I did none and got BigLaw and midLaw. Some of my classmates did it and they work at 5 person firms. I would not do it.

It's almost certainly not worth it in any objective case. If you're at a school where most people are on journals, or have an otherwise thin resume, or have narrow publishing interests that line up with the journal's focus, it can still be a good idea though.

Generally secondary journals aren't a huge amount of work, so even if it's "a waste" it wouldn't be a big one.

I was the EIC of my school's secondary journal, which is akin to being the tallest dwarf.

thesealocust wrote:Generally secondary journals aren't a huge amount of work, so even if it's "a waste" it wouldn't be a big one.

Agree with this. Doing a secondary journal isn't a huge time commitment. Just do your editing while watching TV and call it a day. When it comes to secondary journal staffer work, perfect is the enemy of the good.

sparty99 wrote:Stick to none. It is a waste of time if not law review. The only people who care (and it is a remote care) is big law. I did none and got BigLaw and midLaw. Some of my classmates did it and they work at 5 person firms. I would not do it.

+1

I was on a secondary journal and I highly regret it. Huge waste of time with minimal (if any) reward.