Top Law Schools

How much to judges care about Law Review officer positions? Do only EIC's get boosts, or do Managing Editors, Exec. Editors, Articles Editors, etc. (i.e., how far down does it go?)

Generally, only LR EICs get a bump (both because of the title, and because law schools often expend a lot of resources to make sure the EIC gets a good clerkship) . But judges will also look favorably on other positions, particularly the exec editors who are heavily involved in editing.

The DJ I clerked for not only didn't care about LR, he likely had no idea what any position was other than EIC. (I know this is not standard for judges, but it's one data point.)

Our T14's clerkship office strongly encouraged students on LR to run for board because many judges look for it or see it as a plus, but the only position that will get you a clerkship that otherwise wouldn't really be in your league is probably EIC. At our law school, the EIC in my year was not in the top 25% but got reasonably prestigious (though definitely not feeder) district and circuit court clerkships. My sense is that conservative judges have deemphasized law review as law reviews have started relying less on grades and more on diversity, especially in board selection (which is now highly political at many top law schools), however.

I clerked for a judge who expressly looked for writing experience outside of law school/besides LR because their take was that at this point, almost anyone who wants to be on a journal can find one to accept them, and so it didn’t say much about the person’s writing ability. I think being EIC would have caught the judge’s eye, but their main interest was in writing ability and I don’t think EIC is actually a great measure of that. (It wasn’t about the diversity stuff, it was just that they didn’t feel journal membership, even LR, said much about writing ability.)

Obviously this is just one judge and it’s kind of impossible to extrapolate to others, but just for one data point.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:09 pm

Generally, only LR EICs get a bump (both because of the title, and because law schools often expend a lot of resources to make sure the EIC gets a good clerkship) . But judges will also look favorably on other positions, particularly the exec editors who are heavily involved in editing.

Definitely not true. I know of several federal appellate judges who do care about law review experience (on the assumption that it makes you a better writer / illustrates work ethic), and not just EIC-level. There's at least a couple judges on CA2/9/DC that specifically have LR-connected chambers that are constantly in touch with the LR at the respective schools, and for whom a large number of their hires get a leg up based on LR membership, not the specific position.

Joachim2017 wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 4:33 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:09 pm

Generally, only LR EICs get a bump (both because of the title, and because law schools often expend a lot of resources to make sure the EIC gets a good clerkship) . But judges will also look favorably on other positions, particularly the exec editors who are heavily involved in editing.

Definitely not true. I know of several federal appellate judges who do care about law review experience (on the assumption that it makes you a better writer / illustrates work ethic), and not just EIC-level. There's at least a couple judges on CA2/9/DC that specifically have LR-connected chambers that are constantly in touch with the LR at the respective schools, and for whom a large number of their hires get a leg up based on LR membership, not the specific position.

I think the anon meant that only EICs get a bump relative to other board positions, which seems to be the general wisdom on similar threads like this on the forum.

One thing I'll add to the conversation is that being EiC is great interview prep; you're forced to read a lot of law review articles and provide substantive feedback on them. It makes you at least conversational in a lot of topics you otherwise would not be. The same is true for other board positions, but to a lesser extent.

namefromplace wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 4:53 pm

Joachim2017 wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 4:33 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:09 pm

Generally, only LR EICs get a bump (both because of the title, and because law schools often expend a lot of resources to make sure the EIC gets a good clerkship) . But judges will also look favorably on other positions, particularly the exec editors who are heavily involved in editing.

Definitely not true. I know of several federal appellate judges who do care about law review experience (on the assumption that it makes you a better writer / illustrates work ethic), and not just EIC-level. There's at least a couple judges on CA2/9/DC that specifically have LR-connected chambers that are constantly in touch with the LR at the respective schools, and for whom a large number of their hires get a leg up based on LR membership, not the specific position.

I think the anon meant that only EICs get a bump relative to other board positions, which seems to be the general wisdom on similar threads like this on the forum.

One thing I'll add to the conversation is that being EiC is great interview prep; you're forced to read a lot of law review articles and provide substantive feedback on them. It makes you at least conversational in a lot of topics you otherwise would not be. The same is true for other board positions, but to a lesser extent.

While I agree that it's helpful to read articles, articles editors generally read/edit far, far more articles than editors who don't play a role in initial article screening, including EICs. The AEs at the top law reviews are often budding academia gunners for that reason.

In the DJ chambers I worked in, the judges didn’t care about law review because it has nothing to do with legal writing. At most, it was a signal of class rank in those schools that hide student rankings. We looked for actual legal writing experience.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:59 pm

In the DJ chambers I worked in, the judges didn’t care about law review because it has nothing to do with legal writing. At most, it was a signal of class rank in those schools that hide student rankings. We looked for actual legal writing experience.

I mean if you publish a comment or have a role that requires making line edits your work on law review has a hell of a lot to do with legal writing; that sounds like the opinion of someone who's never been on a journal. The general point that the attitude towards law review differs between judges is definitely right though.

Iowahawk wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 10:43 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:59 pm

In the DJ chambers I worked in, the judges didn’t care about law review because it has nothing to do with legal writing. At most, it was a signal of class rank in those schools that hide student rankings. We looked for actual legal writing experience.

I mean if you publish a comment or have a role that requires making line edits your work on law review has a hell of a lot to do with legal writing; that sounds like the opinion of someone who's never been on a journal. The general point that the attitude towards law review differs between judges is definitely right though.

I was an articles editor, and it helped to the extent it was another year of blue booking. However, Law review involves academic writing, which generally has little to nothing to do with legal writing, at least at the trial level and in practice. I wouldn’t know if it’s useful at the appellate level.

Yeah, I'm actually a pretty big LR booster, but LR writing is nothing like writing for a judge. Depending on if you were on the board and what position you held, you might get a lot of experience editing/proofreading, which can help a little, and/or bluebooking, which can also help a little (although the vast majority of citations in the vast majority of clerkships are going to be to cases, so not requiring very extensive knowledge of bluebooking). But I wouldn't really call those things actual legal writing.

(Personally I think LR is most valuable as a signal that you're willing to grind away with great care over someone else's work in which you have little personal investment, but that could just be me, and obviously that value depends on whether that's what an employer is looking for.)

nixy wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:03 am

Yeah, I'm actually a pretty big LR booster, but LR writing is nothing like writing for a judge. Depending on if you were on the board and what position you held, you might get a lot of experience editing/proofreading, which can help a little, and/or bluebooking, which can also help a little (although the vast majority of citations in the vast majority of clerkships are going to be to cases, so not requiring very extensive knowledge of bluebooking). But I wouldn't really call those things actual legal writing.

(Personally I think LR is most valuable as a signal that you're willing to grind away with great care over someone else's work in which you have little personal investment, but that could just be me, and obviously that value depends on whether that's what an employer is looking for.)

I might also guess that between two applicants with similar grades or other stats, LR is valuable as a signal of time management. If you got the same excellent grades as someone else, but you also did that with a relatively tedious and definitely time-consuming job like LR, you probably have better time management skills.

Iowahawk wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 5:36 pm

namefromplace wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 4:53 pm

Joachim2017 wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 4:33 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:09 pm

Generally, only LR EICs get a bump (both because of the title, and because law schools often expend a lot of resources to make sure the EIC gets a good clerkship) . But judges will also look favorably on other positions, particularly the exec editors who are heavily involved in editing.

Definitely not true. I know of several federal appellate judges who do care about law review experience (on the assumption that it makes you a better writer / illustrates work ethic), and not just EIC-level. There's at least a couple judges on CA2/9/DC that specifically have LR-connected chambers that are constantly in touch with the LR at the respective schools, and for whom a large number of their hires get a leg up based on LR membership, not the specific position.

I think the anon meant that only EICs get a bump relative to other board positions, which seems to be the general wisdom on similar threads like this on the forum.

One thing I'll add to the conversation is that being EiC is great interview prep; you're forced to read a lot of law review articles and provide substantive feedback on them. It makes you at least conversational in a lot of topics you otherwise would not be. The same is true for other board positions, but to a lesser extent.

While I agree that it's helpful to read articles, articles editors generally read/edit far, far more articles than editors who don't play a role in initial article screening, including EICs. The AEs at the top law reviews are often budding academia gunners for that reason.

Pretty sure this varies from school to school. At my law school, the EiC edits around at least 3-4 times as many articles as any individual Articles Editor and takes a role in articles selection.

I can say that, as someone who has endured dozens of big firm and clerkship interviews, nobody has ever asked me a single question about my non-EIC LR board position. So, while I'd do it again, I'm a little skeptical of how valuable it was career wise. That said, I can't rule out that the board position helped me get some of those interviews. Perhaps more importantly than any direct career benefit, almost all of my best law school friendships are those that I developed while working insane hours as a 3L on the board, which later became a networking bonus down the road.

Neither of my judges (district court & COA) particularly cared about LR, but an EIC position would have been noted. High grades without LR would have beat a fancy journal position with okay grades (both judges cared about grades/law school). Some clerks valued LR/e-board more than others when we reviewed applications.

While I don't think that LR board was a big boost by itself, it could help in other ways: A well-written and interesting note used as a writing sample could strengthen an application. And some discussed their journal roles in a useful way during an interview (e.g., a notes editor might have talked about working collaboratively with people to improve writing). Of course, people who got good writing/editing experience through other means (clinic, externships, a seminar paper, whatever) could discuss that just as effectively in an interview.