How important is Law Review on your resume? The standard thinking is that you need either Law Review or Moot Court on your resume to prove that you actually did something in law school. Apparently, just running the gauntlet isn't enough. Well, The Fox just posted several reasons why you don't need to worry about participating in Law Review in order to get a job. Or, at least that Law Review alone isn't determinative.
It should be noted that the comments after the post add the caveat that these reasons apply only to UCLA Law Review, but I suspect the observations apply to Law Reviews more generally. The most interesting point (to me at least) is that the purpose of Law Review is no longer as relevant as before the advent of the internet. While Law Reviews once had a monopoly on scholarly work, now professors can post their ruminations on the internet and bypass Law Review altogether. Technology certainly has changed the Law Review game. Although, from the professor's perspective, it's hard to pass up a room full of chumps combing over your work for silly mistakes and citation errors. If professors continue to supply law students with resume-padding opportunities, then Law Review probably isn't going anywhere.
Another point that caught my eye is that good grades always trump mediocre grades and Law Review. Sounds about right to me. Still, while Law Review may not be necessary if you have stellar grades, not everyone does. So what do us schmucks with average (or even below average) grades do? I don't know about everyone else, but I'm not confident enough in my grades to skip the Law Review write on process.
Law Review is the most overrated institution in law school. If you want to be a trial litigator, take trial litigation courses, moot court, mock trial, etc. If you want to be a law clerk or work in the biggest law firm in L.A., definitely join law review. But life is too short to do things that you don't want to do. Even if you want to be a judical clerk, don't join law review if your life is going to be miserable. Nobody should do anything for a reason in the future. They should do it assuming they would still want to be there even if they never got the job they wanted. Would they still be there knowing they'll never be a judicial clerk? Then they shouldn't do it. Just my two cents, but I have more of a Zen philosophy that many people would be best to ignore.
Western Justice.
Posted by: Western Justice | March 17, 2008 at 09:56 PM