No Journal; Top 5% T14; any hope for CoA? Forum

[BlackAndOrange84]

Your last paragraph is riddled with assumptions. Or maybe just narrow mindedness. Lots of smart people, with good reason, know LR or moot court are frivolous. At least for them. The vast majority of people aspire to do that shit because they think it helps them on a resume. They are sometimes right. But, deserving interviews based on that experience is another matter. Maybe some people just have their priorities straight? When you turn 26 or whatever, there are so many more productive things to do with your limited time. Blind adherence to how something supposedly works, however, will likely suit you well at x-name, y-name, and z-name.

It may even be that the 26-year olds, "or whatever," don't have a clue, while the judges and practitioners who think that there's something important about law review are on to something. There are whole threads on why law review is or isn't just a brass ring, so I won't rehash them here. But at the least, law review is a proxy for intelligence and the ability to churn hours of hard, detailed-oriented work on something you don't particularly care about.

If you and the other "smart people" can't see how that's important to judges and practitioners and to the practice of law more generally, you either aren't as a smart as you think you are or at least have an overinflated sense of your own importance—and either is grounds for a judge or practitioner to not trust you with working on her opinions or briefs. There's nothing more "narrow minded" than thinking that you as a 26-year old, "or whatever," have got it all figured out while all the old fogies and the striver conformists don't have their priorities straight and simply "blindly adhere" to the importance of law review because that's what their predecessors did and what they did.

[bruinfan10]

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[Anonymous User]

Your last paragraph is riddled with assumptions. Or maybe just narrow mindedness. Lots of smart people, with good reason, know LR or moot court are frivolous. At least for them. The vast majority of people aspire to do that shit because they think it helps them on a resume. They are sometimes right. But, deserving interviews based on that experience is another matter. Maybe some people just have their priorities straight? When you turn 26 or whatever, there are so many more productive things to do with your limited time. Blind adherence to how something supposedly works, however, will likely suit you well at x-name, y-name, and z-name.

It may even be that the 26-year olds, "or whatever," don't have a clue, while the judges and practitioners who think that there's something important about law review are on to something. There are whole threads on why law review is or isn't just a brass ring, so I won't rehash them here. But at the least, law review is a proxy for intelligence and the ability to churn hours of hard, detailed-oriented work on something you don't particularly care about.

If you and the other "smart people" can't see how that's important to judges and practitioners and to the practice of law more generally, you either aren't as a smart as you think you are or at least have an overinflated sense of your own importance—and either is grounds for a judge or practitioner to not trust you with working on her opinions or briefs. There's nothing more "narrow minded" than thinking that you as a 26-year old, "or whatever," have got it all figured out while all the old fogies and the striver conformists don't have their priorities straight and simply "blindly adhere" to the importance of law review because that's what their predecessors did and what they did.

Drawing false dichotomy. Counterargument presenting different POV is not necessarily = to saying that POV is always right for everyone. Instead, it can just be endorsing view that there are multiple rational ways to think of the situation.

[Anonymous User]

ljl at the anon fighting with pupkin in this thread. pretty sure that horse has been beaten to death, but yes, anyone who's been involved in CoA clerkship hiring could tell you that the 1%ers stand out.

in answer to the original question, you certainly have hope, but you'll get fewer interviews than 5%ers who were on LR (see, e.g., the 1%er anon who didn't do journal and only landed a "few" CoA interviews--if she'd done a journal, and assuming she applied broadly, she would've had to fend off CoA interviews with a stick). If you did well in moot court though, there are a number of judges who see that as just as good/better experience than a secondary journal and sometimes even LR. Having argued a case for a clinic can also serve you even better than LR (as a side note though, you'd be AMAZED at the number of 5%er students who have done all of those things).

If you did none of those things and just studied for class, again, you have hope, but you deserve to get far fewer interviews--I know a LOT of clerks who would do everything in their power to keep that kind of an app off the desk. Pretty sure all of us who weren't literally #1 in our class could've inched up if we'd ditched LR/moot/clinic and just prepped for those absurd LS exams 14 hours a day. That's not how it works.

Your last paragraph is riddled with assumptions. Or maybe just narrow mindedness. Lots of smart people, with good reason, know LR or moot court are frivolous. At least for them. The vast majority of people aspire to do that shit because they think it helps them on a resume. They are sometimes right. But, deserving interviews based on that experience is another matter. Maybe some people just have their priorities straight? When you turn 26 or whatever, there are so many more productive things to do with your limited time. Blind adherence to how something supposedly works, however, will likely suit you well at x-name, y-name, and z-name.

So, my recollection is that this is a thread about Court of Appeals clerkship applicants who haven't done a law journal, and how that affects their applications. So yeah, lots of people who don't plan to apply for CoA clerkships might find moot/LR to be frivilous "for them." And even people like OP have a strong shot at landing CoA without a journal, but it will negatively affect them as CoA applicants, and for good reason.

I mean seriously, do you not understand that the people who stay at the top of their class AND do LR/moot/clinic also have families, friends, passions, and hobbies? Those people are making sacrifices because they want one of the most selective jobs in the legal profession (whether the decision to apply for that job is worth the sacrifice is a good question, but probably one for a different thread).

So I'm not judging you for deciding you don't want to sacrifice your track time or drank time or ski time or whatever--I'm saying there's a good reason for why you won't land as many CoA interviews as people who worked themselves really hard in law school. (Also, sweetheart, is it your impression that the current and former CoA clerks in here answering questions are often younger than 26?)

I agree that legal folks think not doing LR, Moot Court, or Clinic means you spent all your time busting your ass in the library just to score a 3.9.

I didn't mean to suggest that at all--I was responding to another one of the anons who said it was stupid to do extracurriculars when you could just spend your time studying and getting higher grades. A lot of top applicants figure out how to ace law school exams (and the minimal amount of actual preparation that requires) early in 1L, which enables them to either do time consuming extracurrics like LR, or in your case, run marathons and volunteer, etc.

It is sometimes baseless to assume that an otherwise highly qualified applicant is making a trade off between LR and something like "drank" or "ski" time.

[bruinfan10]

It is sometimes baseless to assume that an otherwise highly qualified applicant is making a trade off between LR and something like "drank" or "ski" time.

i'm sure you have phenomenal interests outside the law. congratulations on your class rank and best of luck with your applications.