Academic Legal Writing - Eugene Volokh [4]
LAW REVIEW ARTICLES,
STUDENT NOTES,
SEMINAR PAPERS, AND
GETTING ON LAW REVIEW
by
EUGENE VOLOKH
Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law
UCLA School of Law
with foreword by
CHIEF JUDGE ALEX KOZINSKI
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
FOUNDATION PRESS
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Fourth Edition 2010
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To my beloved wife and sons,
Leslie Pereira,
Benjamin Pereira Volokh, and
Samuel Pereira Volokh
*
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eugene Volokh is the Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law at UCLA, where he teaches free speech law, Religion Clauses law, criminal law, tort law, and academic legal writing. Before going into teaching, he clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski and for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Since starting teaching in 1994, he has written (or, in a few instances, co-written) over 65 law review articles, including two in the Harvard Law Review, two in the Yale Law Journal, and five in the Stanford Law Review. He has also written over 80 op-eds in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, and many others. He is the author of The First Amendment and Related Statutes, a textbook from Foundation Press, and the operator of a daily blog called The Volokh Conspiracy (http://volokh.com, founded 2002). He is a member of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel and the American Law Institute.
The article he wrote while in law school, Freedom of Speech and Workplace Harassment (UCLA L. Rev. 1992), has been cited in over 190 academic works and in 14 court cases; this seems to make it the mostcited student article from the 1990s and 2000s. A 2002 survey by Prof. Brian Leiter listed Volokh as the third most cited professor among those who entered law teaching after 1992 (with 810 citations in law reviews at the time; today, the number is about 2100). Four of his law review articles have also been cited in the opinions of Supreme Court Justices.
In Spring 2006, he participated anonymously (and, he's glad to report, successfully) in the UCLA Law Review write-on competition, to better hone the advice that he gives in the “Getting on Law Review” chapter. His pain is your gain.
ACADEMIC LEGAL
WRITING:
LAW REVIEW ARTICLES,
STUDENT NOTES,
SEMINAR PAPERS, AND
GETTING ON LAW REVIEW
FOREWORD, BY JUDGE ALEX KOZINSKI
A few years ago I interviewed a candidate for a clerkship. He had record-breaking grades from a name-brand law school and his recommenders sprinkled their letters with phrases like “Kozinski clone” and “better even than you.” This kid was hot.
His interview went well, and I had pretty much made up my mind to hire him on the spot, when I popped a fateful question: “So, have you decided on the topic for your law review note?”
“It's done,” the candidate replied. And, with a flourish, he pulled an inch-thick document from his briefcase and plopped it on my desk. Impressed, I picked it up and read the title page: “The Alienability and Devisability of Possibilities of