Top Law Schools

Hello friends,

I need some advice on whether to accept a position on law review. I am a rising 2L. Last week I received a summer associate offer at a firm prominent in a mid-size legal market where I want to end up long-term. For the past decade or so, this firm has always hired their summer associates for post-graduate associate positions. Furthermore, this firm is merging with a significant regional firm, effectively tripling its revenue and size. Offer in hand, I also received an offer from a journal at my school. Based on the bios of the attorneys at the firm, most did not do law review, or most do not include it in their profiles on the firm's site. I know journal is a substantial commitment; so, I am wondering what you all think about the value of participating in journal at this point.

Obviously journal is a major resume line, and the safe bet is probably to do it in case this job falls through. Journal is also essentially a pre-requisite to clerk. On the other hand, this job seems like a safe bet. I do not have much of an interest in clerking post-graduation. I also have significant personal commitments that require time. So, I know journal would make the next year exponentially more difficult balancing school, a part-time job, journal, and my personal commitments. Thanks for your thoughts!

It probably is not going to make a difference in the grand scheme of things, but I still say do it. IME, people vastly exaggerate the difficulty and time necessary to be a law review staffer, and it comes with some very real benefits:

1. Law Review is a network onto itself -- and it's filled with mostly high-achieving students who go on to be high-achieving lawyers. You want to be friends (or at least on good terms) with those people.

2. It's one of those resume credentials that never goes away -- I see old partners that still list the volumes they were on law review a billion years ago.

3. It teaches attention to detail and (if only in small ways) improves your writing.

I know somebody that turned down Law Review at a T6. They wound up fine, and still locked down a pretty nice COA clerkship.

It probably wasn’t a great decision to turn it down (and maybe they could have done better with LR on their resume), but the kind of people who are offered Law Review are the type to land on their feet anyway.