A12345 wrote:This is annoying. Obviously nothing is sure to guarantee a good job. All I was saying is if you want a high-paying job, it is best to do a journal because many high-paying jobs think it is important. If you choose not to do a journal you are potentially putting yourself below peer applicants. Journals, with law review mattering much more than the others, is highly valued by nearly every type of firm. Whereas, many places do not care about moot court competitions, board of barristers, student organizations, nearly as much. After talking to several of my classmates and friends at other law schools, many of them talked about how in interviews the interviewers said they wanted strong litigators. But then they went and hired/gave callbacks to mostly people on law review, many of whom had never had much or any experience doing advocacy competitions.
TLDR version: it's all a crapshoot. Do the annoying write-on packet so you don't have to worry about regretting not doing it if you end up jobless.
I agree that this is annoying, because you keep changing your argument and still seem to be missing the point. First it was "you NEED to do journal to get a high paying job," and now it is basically "you should really consider journal because a lot of high paying jobs favor it." If you had said that in the first place, then we wouldn't have had this back and forth. It is pretty common knowledge that journal is generally a good thing and that a lot of firms/careers want you to have it. However, it is a completely different thing to say that you NEED it to get a "high paying job," which is what you said in the first place. Glad we got that cleared up though.
I will say that journal isn't some Godsend that everyone needs to do, unlike what you're suggesting. There are plenty of careers that do not call for journal, such as the litigation jobs already mentioned, criminal law, public interest, etc. This is exactly why Greg Fouratt turned down an invitation for law review. He knew that there were more beneficial things he could do to attain his career goals than be on a journal. I definitely think every student should strongly consider it, but they also need to consider the negatives of being on a journal, namely the huge time commitment that takes away from studying and other activities they could be doing. So while journal is usually a plus to most resumes, it isn't some absolute that is needed to reach success from Tech Law; there are plenty of ways to do that, depending on one's individual career goals. But yes, for pretty much any firm job, it is a huge plus.
PM me if you want to have the last word. There's no need to keep this going on this thread.
Edit to add about the PM.
Yes, every once in a while it smells like a feed lot and the wind (and blowing dirt) is not to be believed, but it is a nice little city. You can go to NM to ski quite easily if that's your gig.
