Although I fought through every minute of it, writing onto a law journal could be one of the best things you can do for your career.
I’m not sure how the writing competitions for law journals are handled in other law schools, but Suffolk Law had two different competitions; an open competition (open to everybody), and a closed competition (eligible only to those in the top 25% of the class and anyone awarded best brief or best oral argument).
The trick was that you could only enter into one of the competitions for each law journal. The open competition started the Friday after the last final and the closed competition started a couple weeks after grades were released. So, if you wanted to write onto a journal you had to either start the open competition the first weekend after a month of finals or cross your fingers and hope you did well on your exams.
Like most law students I was not completely confident on the outcome of my exams. So, I picked up the packet for the open competition and leafed through it. Going through the 50+ page packet, I realized if I were to attempt this academic feat, not only would I have to gear back up into school mode after one month of straight studying and test taking but in the same time, I would have to move out of my apartment, go back home, and prepare for the interview with the firm in Glens Falls. I decided that the open competition was not for me and prayed that I would make the cut with my grades.
My prayers were answered. Managing some how to scarcely make it into the top 20% of my class I was eligible to enter the closed competition for all five Honor Boards (in order of what I wanted to be invited to: Law Review, Moot Court, Transnational Law Review, Journal of High Technology, and Journal of Health and Biomedical Law).
I took a trip to Boston, visited some friends and picked up the closed competition packet. This time the packet was a little thinner and much less intimidating. After quickly leafing through it, I decided that it was somewhat manageable. The competition asked for a case comment. This meant I had to write a well-written, organized, thought-provoking paper discussing the merits of a certain case. The packet laid out the structure under which the paper was to be written, the acceptable number of sentences per paragraph, the acceptable number of paragraphs per section and the acceptable number of pages of footnotes. I find it much easier when I am confined when writing because it allows me to write as much as I want and then like a cookie cutter, cut out only what is required. This reassures me that I am on the right track and I have filled the specific requirements.
The case-in-chief was ConnectU LCC v. Zuckerberg, 522 F.3d 82 (1st Cir., 2008). The case was a fight over the rights to Facebook.com (pretty exciting/interesting), the appeal however was over the procedural issue of the “time-of-filing” rule (not so much). Despite the boring procedure part, the case itself read pretty easily and I spotted the major issues the first time through. I was pretty confident going into to paper that I would be able to finish in time.
I took the two weeks allotted for the competition off from work and began researching the case. My job was to describe the facts of the case, provide a history of whatever legal issue was most important, detail the courts holding, and then write some sort of analysis on the holding. If only it was that easy. When writing a law journal entry, almost every sentence must have a corresponding footnote with legal authority. So for every page that I wrote there were two more pages of footnotes. I had to cite to a minimum of 10 primary sources (statutes and case law) and eight secondary sources (other law journals and treatises). This was the hardest part of the paper. I was researching and adding secondary sources up to the last hour that the paper was due, citing to whatever seemed like it would fit.
After the two week battle with my computer and secondary sources, I submitted my paper with 30 minutes to spare. Every journal reviews your submission and then if, based on whatever criteria they use, they like your paper, you will recieve an invitation to the board. The papers were due the 26th of July, and on Sunday, August 10th you were notified, by a phone call, if you were accepted to any of the journals.
On Sunday, August 10 around 2:35:34 pm, I received a phone call from the Editor of the Suffolk Transnational Law Review. He offered me invitations to the Transnational Law Review, Journal of High Technology, and Journal of Health and Biomedical Law. Knowing only that the Transnational Law Review was considered more prestigious than the other two, I chose that one.
Although unaware of what exactly I will be doing I am more excited than ever to be on it. For one thing, on campus interviews start in September and being on a law journal is a pre-requisite for obtaining interviews with the big firms. Second, the legal writing and research experience I will gain while working on the journal will be invaluable. I know it will be an extremely large amount of work but I know it will pay off.