Last night was the (not mandatory) information meeting for any 1L or 2L evening student who is interested in being on a journal next year. When I was a 1L, I was overflowing with questions at this point so I thought it might be nice to start an open thread to talk about anything competitors want to talk about. Ask a question about journals or the competition itself, discuss a quirk, bitch about missing part of your spring break–it’s all open.
(note, I will remove any post that I think violates Academic Integrity. Students who have competed in the journal competition in past years may not share their comptition submissions with current competitors. Discussion of past topics is permitted by the rules. If in doubt, please go to TWEN and check out the rules on the competition site.)
Wait, that meeting was mandatory?!?
Oh god! Thank you JW for pointing that out. It was not mandatory, and I will edit my post to take it out. Serious apologies for that oversight.
I had been thinking of opening up a thread about this myself, because I wanted to share my experience. For those of you who already are convinced that you want to do journal, this comment is not for you. Instead, it’s for those who are still struggling to figure out what they want to do, as I was last year. (Although with the tanked economy and firm layoffs, you should really do anything you can to help your resume at this point, and being on a journal will make a difference during recruitment for many people). I am sure many people will disagree with what I’m about to say, so take it only as one person’s opinion.
At this point last year, I had pretty much decided that I was NOT going to do the competition, that journal would be terrible (because that’s all I heard in the hallways was how awful it is), and so why should I bother? I’m the first one in my family to go to law school (we’re more the wheeling and dealing types who start businesses), so I hadn’t had it ingrained in my whole being since the start of time that being on a journal was a must.
Further, over Spring Break was NOT the time I wanted to spend doing more law school stuff- I was burned out, and was having my wedding shower that week in Kansas City. There was no way I was going to have time to do it, and I didn’t care.
But, at the last minute, I decided to pick up the packet anyway. Just to see what the competition looked like. As it turned out, it was all about a topic I was interested in. I spent my time on the trip home just reading the packet, and decided that this was something that I in fact had thoughts about, so why not just do the competition and see what happens.
I’m so glad that I did. Being on journal is one of my favorite things I’ve done in law school (understand that I HATED mock trial and moot court), with the exception of being in the Law Revue show. Is writing the note a lot of work? YES. Oh, boy, it’s a lot of work. But, very soon I will be done with my note. At which point I will have a piece of writing that I will (hopefully) be proud of.
Secondly, I had heard so many terrible things about the source substantiation/blue booking process. It’s not that bad, though I can only speak for my own journal (ILR). It really doesn’t take that much time, and you get much, much better at it. It forces you to learn how to bluebook (much more than you are learning this year), and yes, it does get much easier (and faster). You eventually see the system from a different perspective, and understand that not EVERY source has 1 right way to bluebook (though, of course, many sources do have only 1 right way). Better Blue Booking skills will also help you in your future job (so I am told, at least).
Finally, how much of your time the competition takes up is really up to you. There is always more that you could do on something like this. Only you can decide when you’re truly done. I can only tell you that I did NOT spend my whole break on it, though it did take up a lot of time. But in the end, it was worth it to me, because while the classes are EARLY in the morning, there are only a few of them all year, and at the end of the day it’s been a great experience.
Since comments are a little slow on this thread, I’ll throw in my two cents. First I’ll start with some thoughts about the competition itself:
You don’t need all four days to do the competition. There is an extra day built into the competition to account for religious observance (of either Saturday or Sunday), and no one expects you to work 20 hours each day of the competition. So on this point, I agree 100% with Katie. Also, I’m going to tell you a secret. You don’t have to read all of the sources. Once you read the main case and have an idea of something you might like to talk about, read the sources relevant to that idea and give a quick skim to others to make sure that you’re not missing a totally on point source. Remember, your analysis is only 3 pages in Courier font which is really like a long paragraph (slight sarcasm, but it’s close). In terms of the Bluebooking, you will see cites you will never see again (and in my opinion that you should never see in the first place, because they’re irrelevant to real life cite checking). The goal is to show that you get the intricacies of the rules in your closed universe. You definitely don’t need to read through the whole bluebook to prepare, but do be prepared to get creative. I would say more, but I’m not sure that’s allowed. In sum, relax about it, make sure you do at least two edits of what you write and relax, go out to dinner, watch a movie, etc.
As for being on a journal (disclaimer, I don’t work for the CDO and any advice here is based on my experience and anecdotal evidence from friends–use it if it helps you, ignore it if you think it’s b.s.), I have very mixed feelings. I’ve had mixed feelings for a year now. I almost didn’t do the competition, and spent the week before spring break asking everyone who was doing it why they were doing it and hoped that by playing devil’s advocate I’d eventually come up with a good reason for myself. In the end, my reason was that I want to do a judicial clerkship at some point. If you want a federal clerkship, it’s an absolute must have. If you want a state clerkship, it’s still a good idea. If you want to go into academia, also a must have.
Beyond that, it’s not as clear cut. I’m not that well versed in the ways of the big firm, but I hear it’s very helpful there, but certainly not a must have. I know a few students who aren’t on journals, some of whom have stellar grades, others of whom have better than average grades who are working for big firms (either this summer or after they graduate). I also know people that were hired by a big firm specifically because they were on a journal, somewhat based on that journal’s topic. For example, there are not enough Government Contracts lawyers in the United States. If you go into that area, a job is pretty much waiting for you in the D.C. area.
For me, I’m working for a small public interest oriented firm this summer. I interviewed with 5 people there and not one of them asked me about my journal. They couldn’t have cared less. That is of course not to say all Public Interest organizations or firms won’t care. Some will, some won’t, but a good rule of thumb is that the smaller the firm you want to work in, the less they’ll probably care. I’m pretty sure other people will push back against this comment, but it’s just my opinion from my experience and my friends.
As for liking being on a journal–I hate it. Katie is right that the source collection isn’t really a big deal (unless you’re on Law Review, where the assignments are much much more frequent). I have two assignments all year. Neither was really bad, both did help my research skills (in the government contracts arena), and I had two weeks to complete each. My editors have been really nice, and pretty easy to communicate with. All in all, no big deal.
As for writing a note, I hate it. Here’s why. First, there is little individualized guidance on how to pick a good note topic. We have to go to six classes at 7:45am throughout the year, which in theory are supposed ot help you write your note. I didn’t find them that helpful and my notes adjunct hasn’t been a great help either. It’s up to you to be proactive and when you’re dealing with an area of law you know nothing about (read government contracts) it can be hard to figure something out.
Also, Last semester I took two classes that had papers instead of finals. Since one of them was also my Outside Placement Co-req I had to write one 20 page and one 30 page paper. Now I know that doing a 20 hour OP, Van Vleck, a journal, and writing 50 pages of other papers was a bad idea. Read very bad idea. This semester I am doing less outside of class activities to leave time for writing my note. I would just rather not be writing this note. I know I sound like a whiny baby (p.s. that doesn’t give all commenters permission to start calling me a whiny baby). Its not even that my topic is so bad or tedious or technical. It’s not, it’s just that in law school there is limited time and limited energy to do things. Writing this note is not what I’d like to be devoting that energy to. I’d rather be doing Pro-Bono stuff or doing more stuff is co-Pres of Lambda.
I often ask myself if I would do the competition again if I had the chance. Some days the answer is yes, because I still want to do a clerkship, and other days the answer is no, because I hate writing my note and I think I can get a state court clerkship anyway. This little rant of mine is just my opinion and just some thoughts. I thought about quitting my journal last semester, after I’d been swallowed whole by Van Vleck and was really burned out. I didn’t because I would have had to take 4 incomplete credits on my transcript last semester, and I felt that would be too big of a handicap in the future. The lesson to be learned is once you’re in you’re in. Trust yourself, and if you don’t want to be on a journal, there are other ways to get yourself published, find impressive things to put on your resume, and otherwise make yourself marketable. That is, unless you want to go into academia or get a federal clerkship.
I echo what’s been said and have one thought to offer.
Being on the journal is good for the resume, but it’s also good in that you’re able to keep up your bluebooking skills. Some upperclassman who aren’t on a journal haven’t bluebooked since they were 1Ls. That probably makes a lot of them happy, but not necessarily their future employers.
I also have to echo a lot of the thoughts here. Here are my two cents:
The Journal Competition – I also agree that it doesn’t have to take the whole 4 days and do NOT read the entire packet or it will take you the entire time. Take navahs’ advice and just read the case and the relevant material. The journal competition is great way to get a writing sample. I don’t know how many other people used their submission for an FRP writing sample, but I did. I would have had to redact my LRW stuff and I didn’t feel too proud of what I’d written in LRW anyway. I interned for a judge over the summer, so I had plenty of memos and orders, but some of them had to be pumped out pretty fast, so they weren’t written with the care that I would have liked. I knew I had been diligent about editing and bluebooking my journal submission and it fit in the page length most firms were looking for, so it was the perfect writing sample.
Being on Journal – I think it sucks and I hate it. Source collection isn’t that bad, but I really don’t get much out of it. I’ve only had to do it twice, but I find that it’s inconvenient and takes up time you don’t really have. I think bluebooking is a great skill to have, but you can still be a great lawyer without being a great bluebooker. To me, it’s like saying that having great typing skills makes you a better law student. Sure, you write faster notes and exams, but are you willing to take typing lessons to become a better law student? How many people do you know that can’t use the right keys that are great students or that are super typists, but have crappy GPAs? Being great bluebooker just means you can write briefs a little faster because you don’t have to look everything up all the time just like being a good typists means you write exams and notes faster.
As for the actual note, I hate that too. It’s very difficult to pick a topic and once you do, you’re married to it for a year and if it isn’t that interesting to you, it can be painful. As I type, I am putting off doing the second draft of my note because I just hate doing it. I think that some people really enjoy the scholarly process, but I am not one of those people. I think the opportunity to get published is wonderful and for those that do, it sticks with them forever, but it’s a pretty small percentage (I don’t know what it is, maybe another poster can help).
Journal and the Job Search – Who knows if journal really helps. I didn’t get asked about journal very often in interviews and even when you do, you’re just starting out, so there isn’t much to say. I guess as a 3L, you can discuss your note if anyone asks. I was able to get job through FRP with a GPA that wasn’t that stellar. It was good enough to get on journal, but it’s not top 1/3. I don’t know if journal helped me or not. I don’t even know if I would do it again if I had it to do over. I guess I would still choose to be on journal because at the time, I felt like my GPA wasn’t bad enough that every firm was going to laugh at me, but it wasn’t good enough to get in the door everywhere either. I needed a little extra line on my resume, but that extra line comes with a big price and you need to decide if you’re willing to pay it. I think that if you have really great GPA, you’re involved in other activities, and you’re personable in an interview, you’re probably going to get a job without journal, so why put yourself through the pain if you aren’t going to be one of the people that enjoy the process. If your GPA is average, maybe you need a little more on your resume. If you managed to make it on all three skills board, maybe you don’t need journal. Who knows? I know 1Ls are looking for more guidance than this, but that’s all I got.
Two points:
1) A journal is definitely good for your resume if you want to work at a big firm.
2) At GW, either fortunately or unfortunately – however you see it, the journal competition HEAVILY depends on your 1L grades, so don’t be depressed if you didn’t have stellar grades and don’t make Law Review. Not that many people do and it’s okay.
Find other things you like doing and are good at in law school if you don’t make a journal. It’s not the end of the world. And for some – its a blessing in disguise not to make a journal because it is A LOT of work.
“. . .the journal competition HEAVILY depends on your 1L grades . . . .”
Except for AIPLA QJ, which, last I checked, doesn’t consider grades at all. If you’ve got crummy grades that you know aren’t good enough for Law Review, then put AIPLA as your first choice. As far as resumes go, being a journal, even if it’s a secondary journal, is probably better than being on no journal.
okay people, this is driving me crazy. a lot of people keep saying “journal didn’t really seem to matter during FRP because no one said anything about it.” but how do you know you didn’t GET the interview in the first place because you had a journal on your resume? Especially for students whose grades are on the bubble, a journal may give you that extra edge over another student. It’s gotta mean SOMETHING in the job search, especially considering every firm at FRP said “journal preferred” on symplicity.