Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Law Review Lara:
A reader writes:
Your "Law Review Lara" series is well-timed for me. I am currently
a "staffer" on law review -- cite checking and finishing up a
comment (2L). At my school, running for a board position (a 3L
position) is optional. . . . My quandary is this: What is the
career benefit of a "high board" position?
After following the LR debates and being a staffer, I am not sure I
see any. Or at least see any for the majority of us at non-Harvard,
Yale, Columbia etc. schools that have no hope of a legal-academic
career. Wouldn't a law student be better off getting a job during
their third year [externing] for a judge or in [some other]
externship? Or doing anything that teaches them about how to be a
lawyer rather than doing administrative work for journals that
don't appear to be that well put together in the first place.
If you think board positions are valuable, a related question: Is
any board position worth taking? There seems to be hierarchy within
everything in law and law reviews are no exception. Are regular
assistant editor positions viewed differently than editor-in-chief,
etc. positions?
These are hard questions, for two reasons. First, there's been little
or no systematic study of what benefits one gets from a "high board"
position; so everyone's opinion is based on her own experience, which
may be highly unrepresentative. (Plus, Law Review Lara was a mid-board
assistant managing editor, in charge of proofreading, bluebooking, and
coordinating cite-checking; naturally, she thinks this is fascinating
and fantastically useful stuff.) Second, as the reader points out, the
question is one of opportunity costs: Even if a high board position
gives one some advantages, would your time be better spent on
something else?
With that, a few tentative thoughts:
1. Law firms are desperate for some tips about how good a lawyer
you'll be, so even fine gradations in a hierarchy tend to make a
difference to them. They don't care that being a Chief Articles
Editor has made you a much better lawyer; but they suspect that it
means you were smarter -- or harder-working or more politically
savvy, all important factors for a young lawyer -- than the
average person who doesn't have that credential. This may or many
not apply to specialty journals, which have a reputation as being
not terribly selective; but it's likely true for high editorial
board positions (Editor-in-Chief, one of the department chiefs,
and to a lesser extent one of the department Indians) on the
school's main journal.
2. Being on the law review board actually does give you practice in
skills that are important for lawyers. Whether you primarily do
editing, proofreading, articles selection, or supervision of
student Notes, you'll be exposed to a lot of written work, which
you'll have to critique or improve. Writing is one of the most
important skills a lawyer needs, and we don't teach it nearly
enough in law school; editing is the key to good writing; and
editing others' work helps you learn how to better edit your own.
Being an articles selection editor is probably the least useful
here, but the compensation is that you'll then be exposed to lots
of novel ideas on a variety of topics, and some of them may well
come in handy in the future. (Warning: Others are just plain
wrong, and may deceive you more than helping you.)
3. The law review is an extended, cooperative task, and participating
in it -- especially as managers, which the editors-in-chief and
the department chiefs are -- is important training in dealing with
people (and in particular future lawyers). It's not quite like
working in a law firm (the money isn't as good, for instance), but
it does involve working with lawyers, being responsible for
others' work, acting responsibly with your own work, and other
things that do help prepare you for the working world. If you
haven't had much work experience of that sort, being on a law
review board can be useful.
All this having been said, "making law review" -- getting on the
journal in the first place, and then working on it for a year as a
staffer -- is probably the more important credential than getting a
high editorial board position. And, as with many other things, if you
expect to dislike the task, don't do it unless you think it will be
really helpful. Life is too short to work for nothing on something
that leaves you cold and that likely will be at best a moderately
helpful credential. But at the same time don't exaggerate the value
of, for instance, being a judicial extern during law school; that
could be fun, but it's not a terribly helpful credential either.
(Being a judicial clerk after law school is a good credential, but
being an extern for a semester during law school generally isn't.)
Finally, to answer the last question: The credential value, from
highest to lowest, tends to be Editor-in-Chief, department head (Chief
Articles Editor, Chief Notes Editor, Chief Managing Editor or
Executive Editor), then positions in the departments (Articles Editor,
Notes Editor, Book Review Editor, and the like), then the unnamed
editorial positions. This is a rough cut, and note that the board
structure -- and particularly the position names -- vary from school
to school.
In any event, Lara wishes she could have given you a more definite
answer; but this is the best she's got. Lara is enabling comments so
that others who are knowledgeable -- especially people who are
practicing lawyers and are thus on the hiring side -- can speak to
this question. (Recall that the question is the educational and
credential value of having a high editorial board position, or any
editorial board position when the board year is optional, not of being
on law review in the first place.)
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