Academic Legal Writing - Eugene Volokh [154]
C. Which Law Review?
A school's general-purpose journal (sometimes called the “main law review” or just “law review”) usually tends to be more prestigious than the specialty journals; being a staffer or editor on the general-purpose journal is thus usually the better credential for getting clerkships, practice jobs, and teaching jobs. The general-purpose journal will also tend to get better articles submitted to it, because authors would prefer to be published in the more prestigious place. I'm not sure this self-reinforcing pecking order is fair, but that's the way things are.
Nonetheless, there are advantages to being on a specialty journal, if you're interested in the particular specialty—for instance, working on the school's intellectual property journal, entertainment law journal, or media law journal if you're interested in intellectual property law. First, working with material that excites you can be more fun than working with whatever comes in the general-purpose journal's door. Second, focusing on one topic can help you better learn that field. Third, working on a specialty journal may be seen as a good credential by employers who are looking for people who are knowledgeable in the field, and committed to the field. Fourth, working on the specialty journal can give you more to talk about with those employers, and thus help you show off your brilliance to them.
D. “Making Law Review”
There are several basic ways that journals select their staffers:
1. “Walk-on”: If you're willing to put in the work, you're welcome as a member. Some, though not all, specialty journals operate this way; few general-purpose ones do.
2. “Grade-on”: You get on the law review if you are near the top of your class, for instance in the top 10%.
3. “Write-on”: The law review conducts a writing competition, which usually requires you to write a short Note-like paper on a fixed topic in a fixed time (say, over Spring vacation) using a fixed set of materials. The people who write the best papers are selected.
4. Mixed grade-on and write-on: Some law reviews select a percentage (say, half) of their staff through grade-on and the rest through write-on. Others merge the students' classroom grades and writing competition scores into one number, and select the students who received the highest combined result. Often the write-on competition happens before people know who got the highest classroom grades, so even if you think that you'll grade on, you need to participate in the competition just in case.
5. One of 2, 3, and 4 plus “note-on”: Some law reviews provide one extra shot to students who didn't make it through their standard method—the journals let students write a full-fledged student Note, usually over the students' first summer, and then select the students who have written the best such Notes. A typical timetable might be this:
E. Writing On: Background
In Spring 2006, I participated anonymously (and, fortunately, successfully) in the UCLA Law Review write-on competition. I had written onto the law review 16 years before, when I was a student; but I thought it would be helpful to have some more recent experience so that I could offer better advice.
What follows is based partly on that week, partly based on my general writing experience, and partly on reactions I've gotten from law students who successfully used earlier editions of this book in their competitions.
F. What the Competitions Are Like
So you're trying to write on to the law review. How do you succeed? Law review competitions vary from school to school and year to year, but here are some general guidelines that should help you in most situations.
Consider a typical write-on assignment. (I stress again that different law reviews do things differently; this