Law Review Advising

I recently have been appointed the faculty advisor to the Charleston Law Review.    I know and respect a number of the students editors, who all are doing a great job.   At the same time, the advisor job has its challenges (i.e., managing the budget).   Does anyone have any thoughts on how to best fufill this role?   Or more broadly, I think what I am struggling with is this question:  What exactly does the law review advisor do?   I'd love to hear your experiences.

Comments

[Alfred Brophy]

Great set of questions, Sheila. Seems like a lot of advisers assist with the selection of articles (or at least provide guidance); I'd think you could also help shape the development of notes.

[John Nelson]

The advisor for my law review simply performed the administerial role of being the academic advisor for our officially sanctioned "student club." (All student organizations needed a faculty 'advisor.') In short, the advisor did nothing but the admin assistant and editorial staff did everything. (The admin had been there for almost 30 years or so.)

Having said that, I remember clearly the roles we wished our advisor had filled. First, as Mr. Brophy mentions, helping with the selection of articles would be nice.

Second, help with encouraging peers to submit articles to the law review would be helpful. I do not know the quantity or quality of articles Charleston receives, but it's generally only the higher-tier law school law reviews who complain about the burden of sorting through 200 or so articles for each volume.

Third, guidance as to the role of law reviews. I think this is very important. How should an academic journal treat various submissions, for example? Should the journal publish articles from professors at that school? (Generally, this is considered a bit gauche, although it is done.) How should the journal solicit for articles? Should the journal seek revenue through local law firm sponsorship a la ads? (I've seen this done poorly, and done tastefully, although we argued against it period when I was on law review.)

Fourth, school politics. I was in the "other law review," not the top law review. But even with the top law review there are politics at play. How should members be chosen? Should editors or members get course credit (ungraded) for their work? How rigorous of a selection process should exist? (Pure grade one, grade on/write on, pure write on, how critical of a grading process?)

Fifth, Mr. Brophy has another great suggestion—the selection of topics for notes, comments, and recent developments. Even if it is not an area you feel adequate in, steer them to a colleague who can help. (I.E., if you don't do CrimPro, steer them the to a good CrimPro prof.)

These are just some ideas. Honestly, it's refreshing to even imagine a law professor being active in advising a law review. I know it happens at some law schools, but my own and my friends' anecdotal experience indicates it is a minority rule.

Cheers, and have fun with it! You're already ahead of the curve for most!

[Sheila B. Scheuerman]

Thanks to you both for the suggestions. For this year, I've decided to focus on helping the students with the note process. We've set up a faculty sponsor system, where the 2Ls were all matched with a professor. (We used a faculty sponsor draft to accomplish this efficiently and fairly. I could not have done it without the generous support of my colleagues, who all volunteered to take at least one mentee). I also set up a series of Academic Writing Workshops for the 2Ls. I covered topic selection and macro structure at the Law Review Orientation last weekend. Our LRW Director and another LRW professor are reviewing law review citations this Friday. In September, the librarians are helping with individual one-on-one half-hour appointments to provide topic-specific research guidance. Finally, in October, another colleague and I are going to discuss the writing process: how to get it down on paper. We also have an annual symposium each year (more on that in another post), and I've been busy getting that organized. It has proven to be an interesting job - very time consuming, but the students are a pleasure.