If you’re a legal educator in the U.S., then you’re no doubt aware of the perennial pedagogical debate over theory vs. doctrine vs. practical experience. Even though I’ve been a podium professor for most of my teaching career, I generally agree that law schools should be doing more to prepare our students for legal practice. When advising students on elective course selection, I’m quick to recommend doing clinics, internships, skills courses, and advocacy competitions.
Curiously, I usually have not mentioned law journal participation in the same breath as skills development. Rather, I’ve been more likely to encourage students to pursue journal opportunities because of their credential value. Lately, however, I’ve noticed that some law schools are including their student-edited law journals under the experiential learning sections of their websites. This is an interesting change from touting law journal membership as an academic honor, but perhaps this is a nod to the current marketing value of pitching practical learning experiences. In any case, I’d like to dive into the merits of law journal work as experiential learning, inspired by a recent epiphany I had in my role as a faculty advisor to the Suffolk University Law Review.
The Standard View
Legal educators have long recognized the potential benefits of law journal participation, among the most prominent being:
- Obtaining a valuable employment credential, especially membership on the flagship law review.
- Reinforcing the close, detail-oriented aspects of legal research and writing, including reviewing, editing, and proofreading legal manuscripts; evaluating the merits of legal and policy arguments; and mastering cite checking and basic legal citation form.
- Researching and writing a Note or Comment on a topic of interest, with the possibility of published article.
Of course, that line or two on a resume often captures a lot of precise, brain-taxing, eye-straining grunt work. While some may have soggy, sentimental memories of cite checking, Bluebooking, article editing, and the like, many others regard this experience as having been a simple exchange: In return for this hard, dull slog and a few academic credits, I enjoyed some genuine benefits that enhanced my career prospects.
Some have suggested that this model of scholarly publishing exploits student labor, reasoning that law students are essentially doing unpaid work (with tuition charged to boot) for law professors and other authors. In fact, earlier this year, law students at New York University submitted a petition calling for students to receive compensation for law journal work, reasoning that they are engaging in labor that enhances the credentials and reputations of their authors.
By classifying journal membership as an academic honor that can enhance job and career opportunities, law schools have largely been able to dodge this issue. However, based on extensive work I’ve done concerning unpaid internships, I think it merits fair consideration, which I plan to do in a later post. For now, however, I’d like to look more closely at the educational benefits of law journal work for our students.
My Road to “Duh”
Last summer, I decided that I wanted to be more engaged as a faculty advisor to our flagship law review at Suffolk University Law School. I contacted the senior members of the new editorial board, sharing some ideas and generally expressing my willingness to be an active resource. As luck would have it, I picked a great year to do this outreach. The editors explained to me that one of their top goals was to create a more positive culture for all students involved with the Law Review. They welcomed my interest in being more closely involved in a mentoring and support role.
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