Best secondary journals at HLS? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Didn't make law review.

[Anonymous User]

I didn't go to HLS and so I'm just an outside observer, but I've always seen JLPP and CR-CL as the two strong secondary journals, based on where I've found useful articles and where faculty from my school have seemed to publish. Pick the one that suits your political fancy?

I am not super plugged into the international law scene, but I've also heard that ILJ is really reputable (for whatever reason, international law pieces don't generally get published in flagship law reviews and so publishing in that field tends to be siloed in the specialty journals).

[Anonymous User]

Didn't make law review.

Blessing in disguise. Don’t waste time on a secondary journal unless you are a conservative looking to clerk, then obviously do JLPP. Plenty of judges don’t give a shit anymore and basically no one cares in biglaw.

[Anonymous User]

Didn't make law review.

JLPP is a strong signal if you are applying to conservative judges. Disagree that conservative judges don't care abt law review anymore, HLR + JLPP > JLPP and it's not close.

Don't think any of the other journals are distinguishable, they only really have value as an indicator that you did something extracurricular or if you are EIC or EME.

JOLT or HBLR are probably the two best funded and give the best swag/have the best food, so would probably do them based on those. CR-CL seems to be a decent signal for progressive leaning people but would imagine it kneecaps your bipartisan appeal if you are trying to apply broadly for clerkships

[Anonymous User]

would JLPP kneecap me for liberal judges?

[Anonymous User]

Didn't make law review.

JLPP is a strong signal if you are applying to conservative judges. Disagree that conservative judges don't care abt law review anymore, HLR + JLPP > JLPP and it's not close.

Don't think any of the other journals are distinguishable, they only really have value as an indicator that you did something extracurricular or if you are EIC or EME.

JOLT or HBLR are probably the two best funded and give the best swag/have the best food, so would probably do them based on those. CR-CL seems to be a decent signal for progressive leaning people but would imagine it kneecaps your bipartisan appeal if you are trying to apply broadly for clerkships

I have personally heard multiple conservative federal judges explicitly say they don’t care about law review anymore. My judge did not even have it in his filtering criteria for narrowing down clerkship apps. Many of my friends have told me the same thing. When you read the full application package (transcripts, resume, writing samples, recs, etc.) as a judge, it quickly becomes very obvious that law review membership at the top schools is no longer based on merit. Do something useful with your time instead.

[Anonymous User]

Didn't make law review.

Depends on what your motivation is. I do think there is substantive value in getting law review experience to get the reps in with technical editing to make it second nature. If nothing else, the number of clerkship applications I saw on SDNY from otherwise top-tier candidates (like magna HLS, top 5% Columbia, etc) that had obvious Bluebooking problems was astounding. Far more applicants with top transcripts had those types of issues in their writing samples than didn't. And that's significant, even if it isn't the biggest thing. If your co-clerk doesn't know the rules or just does not have an eye for detail, it can be a long year.

The Washington & Lee citation rankings aren't everything, but in recent years they have typically had JOLT, HLPR, CRCL, and JLPP at the top. The rankings are quite noisy year to year.

For Bluebooking and working with authors, most of the major secondary journals at HLS are going to give you that type of experience. Some of the journals are slightly more legit on those fronts, but it varies so much year to year based on leadership.

If you are looking for resume signalling, I think it's CRCL or HLPR (progressive) and JLPP (conservative) for ideology and the issue-focused journals (JOLT, JOL, ELR, etc) if you're looking toward a particular area of law.

For a resume gold star, the gap between EIC and other executive board positions is noticeable, even if not always deservedly so—oftentimes the EICs are split so many ways (CRCL famously has 4) that one or two people end up coasting on the efforts of their co-EIC(s). Granted, the difference for your resume is a smallish bump versus a tiny bump. If you're trying to burnish your resume, I would recommend trying to finagle a more junior executive board position during 2L to position yourself to get EIC during 3L.

[Anonymous User]

would JLPP kneecap me for liberal judges?

Not as strongly as fedsoc would, but there’d likely be a pretty strong chill. At least in my chambers there definitely would have been.

[Anonymous User]

would JLPP kneecap me for liberal judges?

Not as strongly as fedsoc would, but there’d likely be a pretty strong chill. At least in my chambers there definitely would have been.

I appreciate the insight!

[jotarokujo]

would JLPP kneecap me for liberal judges?

Yes for my judge

[Anonymous User]

I have personally heard multiple conservative federal judges explicitly say they don’t care about law review anymore. My judge did not even have it in his filtering criteria for narrowing down clerkship apps. Many of my friends have told me the same thing. When you read the full application package (transcripts, resume, writing samples, recs, etc.) as a judge, it quickly becomes very obvious that law review membership at the top schools is no longer based on merit. Do something useful with your time instead.

This is definitely true, and it's not just for conservative judges. Everyone in the real world is realizing that at top Law Reviews like HLR, YLJ, etc., membership and especially officer positions are more a function of race/gender/ethnicity than hard work, intelligence, academic expertise, etc.

HLR members stumble over themselves these days to appoint officers so they can say stuff like "First Non-Binary Woman President in HLR History!" or the like. It's become a matter of politics, and so -- ironically, both for students advantaged and non-advantaged by the increasing emphasis on diversity rather than merit -- Law Review has lost most of its value as an employment or job-market signal.

TLDR: don't sweat it, just get good grades and you'll be fine.

[Anonymous User]

I have personally heard multiple conservative federal judges explicitly say they don’t care about law review anymore. My judge did not even have it in his filtering criteria for narrowing down clerkship apps. Many of my friends have told me the same thing. When you read the full application package (transcripts, resume, writing samples, recs, etc.) as a judge, it quickly becomes very obvious that law review membership at the top schools is no longer based on merit. Do something useful with your time instead.

This is definitely true, and it's not just for conservative judges. Everyone in the real world is realizing that at top Law Reviews like HLR, YLJ, etc., membership and especially officer positions are more a function of race/gender/ethnicity than hard work, intelligence, academic expertise, etc.

HLR members stumble over themselves these days to appoint officers so they can say stuff like "First Non-Binary Woman President in HLR History!" or the like. It's become a matter of politics, and so -- ironically, both for students advantaged and non-advantaged by the increasing emphasis on diversity rather than merit -- Law Review has lost most of its value as an employment or job-market signal.

TLDR: don't sweat it, just get good grades and you'll be fine.

I can't speak for HLR/YLJ processes, but I was on the managing board of one of these top law reviews, and that was really only true for two positions: EIC and the officer in charge of the DEI stuff. For things like the articles board, we went for a mix of ideologies/interests/etc., and the majority-liberal board my year ended up picking a majority-conservative board for the current crop.

I was not on our membership selection committee, but I'll acknowledge that checkbox identity probably plays an outsized role in selection (though I would argue that having a diverse membership is in a journal's best interests beyond just optics). With that said, I had to supervise the work of editors in my managing board role, and I did not see any drop off in quality for people who might be labeled a "diversity candidate," and the worst work was submitted by a guy who I know is in the top 10 in his class. All this is to say that I think the whole thing about law review not being a meritocracy because it is not automatically given to the top 50 GPAs or whatever is totally overblown.

Finally, and more to your main point, I have never heard this take from someone who wasn't conservative, and frankly, I hear it most often from people who didn't make law review. It feels to me like a view held by a vocal minority rather than something that "everyone" in "the real world" believes to be true.

[Anonymous User]

I have personally heard multiple conservative federal judges explicitly say they don’t care about law review anymore. My judge did not even have it in his filtering criteria for narrowing down clerkship apps. Many of my friends have told me the same thing. When you read the full application package (transcripts, resume, writing samples, recs, etc.) as a judge, it quickly becomes very obvious that law review membership at the top schools is no longer based on merit. Do something useful with your time instead.

This is definitely true, and it's not just for conservative judges. Everyone in the real world is realizing that at top Law Reviews like HLR, YLJ, etc., membership and especially officer positions are more a function of race/gender/ethnicity than hard work, intelligence, academic expertise, etc.

HLR members stumble over themselves these days to appoint officers so they can say stuff like "First Non-Binary Woman President in HLR History!" or the like. It's become a matter of politics, and so -- ironically, both for students advantaged and non-advantaged by the increasing emphasis on diversity rather than merit -- Law Review has lost most of its value as an employment or job-market signal.

TLDR: don't sweat it, just get good grades and you'll be fine.

I can't speak for HLR/YLJ processes, but I was on the managing board of one of these top law reviews, and that was really only true for two positions: EIC and the officer in charge of the DEI stuff. For things like the articles board, we went for a mix of ideologies/interests/etc., and the majority-liberal board my year ended up picking a majority-conservative board for the current crop.

I was not on our membership selection committee, but I'll acknowledge that checkbox identity probably plays an outsized role in selection (though I would argue that having a diverse membership is in a journal's best interests beyond just optics). With that said, I had to supervise the work of editors in my managing board role, and I did not see any drop off in quality for people who might be labeled a "diversity candidate," and the worst work was submitted by a guy who I know is in the top 10 in his class. All this is to say that I think the whole thing about law review not being a meritocracy because it is not automatically given to the top 50 GPAs or whatever is totally overblown.

Finally, and more to your main point, I have never heard this take from someone who wasn't conservative, and frankly, I hear it most often from people who didn't make law review. It feels to me like a view held by a vocal minority rather than something that "everyone" in "the real world" believes to be true.

It's one of those very obvious things that isn't allowed to be talked about openly in law school, like most things related to affirmative action.

As you pointed out, the real way to check who is actually trusted to do the hard work is to look at who is on the articles subcommittees of law reviews. But that's at most 10 spots, and has no impact on the original selection of members.

[Anonymous User]

I have personally heard multiple conservative federal judges explicitly say they don’t care about law review anymore. My judge did not even have it in his filtering criteria for narrowing down clerkship apps. Many of my friends have told me the same thing. When you read the full application package (transcripts, resume, writing samples, recs, etc.) as a judge, it quickly becomes very obvious that law review membership at the top schools is no longer based on merit. Do something useful with your time instead.

This is definitely true, and it's not just for conservative judges. Everyone in the real world is realizing that at top Law Reviews like HLR, YLJ, etc., membership and especially officer positions are more a function of race/gender/ethnicity than hard work, intelligence, academic expertise, etc.

HLR members stumble over themselves these days to appoint officers so they can say stuff like "First Non-Binary Woman President in HLR History!" or the like. It's become a matter of politics, and so -- ironically, both for students advantaged and non-advantaged by the increasing emphasis on diversity rather than merit -- Law Review has lost most of its value as an employment or job-market signal.

TLDR: don't sweat it, just get good grades and you'll be fine.

I can't speak for HLR/YLJ processes, but I was on the managing board of one of these top law reviews, and that was really only true for two positions: EIC and the officer in charge of the DEI stuff. For things like the articles board, we went for a mix of ideologies/interests/etc., and the majority-liberal board my year ended up picking a majority-conservative board for the current crop.

I was not on our membership selection committee, but I'll acknowledge that checkbox identity probably plays an outsized role in selection (though I would argue that having a diverse membership is in a journal's best interests beyond just optics). With that said, I had to supervise the work of editors in my managing board role, and I did not see any drop off in quality for people who might be labeled a "diversity candidate," and the worst work was submitted by a guy who I know is in the top 10 in his class. All this is to say that I think the whole thing about law review not being a meritocracy because it is not automatically given to the top 50 GPAs or whatever is totally overblown.

Finally, and more to your main point, I have never heard this take from someone who wasn't conservative, and frankly, I hear it most often from people who didn't make law review. It feels to me like a view held by a vocal minority rather than something that "everyone" in "the real world" believes to be true.

It's one of those very obvious things that isn't allowed to be talked about openly in law school, like most things related to affirmative action.

As you pointed out, the real way to check who is actually trusted to do the hard work is to look at who is on the articles subcommittees of law reviews. But that's at most 10 spots, and has no impact on the original selection of members.

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

[jotarokujo]

I have personally heard multiple conservative federal judges explicitly say they don’t care about law review anymore. My judge did not even have it in his filtering criteria for narrowing down clerkship apps. Many of my friends have told me the same thing. When you read the full application package (transcripts, resume, writing samples, recs, etc.) as a judge, it quickly becomes very obvious that law review membership at the top schools is no longer based on merit. Do something useful with your time instead.

This is definitely true, and it's not just for conservative judges. Everyone in the real world is realizing that at top Law Reviews like HLR, YLJ, etc., membership and especially officer positions are more a function of race/gender/ethnicity than hard work, intelligence, academic expertise, etc.

HLR members stumble over themselves these days to appoint officers so they can say stuff like "First Non-Binary Woman President in HLR History!" or the like. It's become a matter of politics, and so -- ironically, both for students advantaged and non-advantaged by the increasing emphasis on diversity rather than merit -- Law Review has lost most of its value as an employment or job-market signal.

TLDR: don't sweat it, just get good grades and you'll be fine.

no because it's mostly based on write-on

[Anonymous User]

I have personally heard multiple conservative federal judges explicitly say they don’t care about law review anymore. My judge did not even have it in his filtering criteria for narrowing down clerkship apps. Many of my friends have told me the same thing. When you read the full application package (transcripts, resume, writing samples, recs, etc.) as a judge, it quickly becomes very obvious that law review membership at the top schools is no longer based on merit. Do something useful with your time instead.

This is definitely true, and it's not just for conservative judges. Everyone in the real world is realizing that at top Law Reviews like HLR, YLJ, etc., membership and especially officer positions are more a function of race/gender/ethnicity than hard work, intelligence, academic expertise, etc.

HLR members stumble over themselves these days to appoint officers so they can say stuff like "First Non-Binary Woman President in HLR History!" or the like. It's become a matter of politics, and so -- ironically, both for students advantaged and non-advantaged by the increasing emphasis on diversity rather than merit -- Law Review has lost most of its value as an employment or job-market signal.

TLDR: don't sweat it, just get good grades and you'll be fine.

I can't speak for HLR/YLJ processes, but I was on the managing board of one of these top law reviews, and that was really only true for two positions: EIC and the officer in charge of the DEI stuff. For things like the articles board, we went for a mix of ideologies/interests/etc., and the majority-liberal board my year ended up picking a majority-conservative board for the current crop.

I was not on our membership selection committee, but I'll acknowledge that checkbox identity probably plays an outsized role in selection (though I would argue that having a diverse membership is in a journal's best interests beyond just optics). With that said, I had to supervise the work of editors in my managing board role, and I did not see any drop off in quality for people who might be labeled a "diversity candidate," and the worst work was submitted by a guy who I know is in the top 10 in his class. All this is to say that I think the whole thing about law review not being a meritocracy because it is not automatically given to the top 50 GPAs or whatever is totally overblown.

Finally, and more to your main point, I have never heard this take from someone who wasn't conservative, and frankly, I hear it most often from people who didn't make law review. It feels to me like a view held by a vocal minority rather than something that "everyone" in "the real world" believes to be true.

It's one of those very obvious things that isn't allowed to be talked about openly in law school, like most things related to affirmative action.

As you pointed out, the real way to check who is actually trusted to do the hard work is to look at who is on the articles subcommittees of law reviews. But that's at most 10 spots, and has no impact on the original selection of members.

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not at Penn, but I always found this type of criticism to be hilarious and pure cope. Ask the inverse question: Is there any other organization at a school where half of the membership is Coif? It's not even close. LR is still the strongest indicator of grades at any school when you need to do some quick filtering. Then you can look at transcripts to do another layer of filtering.

[Anonymous User]

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

[throwawayt14]

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

Law Review would still have significantly diminished its signaling value if only half of the members are within the top 30% of the class.

[Anonymous User]

Didn't Penn publicly proclaim that diversity has nothing to do with Law Review admissions?

[Anonymous User]

I have personally heard multiple conservative federal judges explicitly say they don’t care about law review anymore. My judge did not even have it in his filtering criteria for narrowing down clerkship apps. Many of my friends have told me the same thing. When you read the full application package (transcripts, resume, writing samples, recs, etc.) as a judge, it quickly becomes very obvious that law review membership at the top schools is no longer based on merit. Do something useful with your time instead.

This is definitely true, and it's not just for conservative judges. Everyone in the real world is realizing that at top Law Reviews like HLR, YLJ, etc., membership and especially officer positions are more a function of race/gender/ethnicity than hard work, intelligence, academic expertise, etc.

HLR members stumble over themselves these days to appoint officers so they can say stuff like "First Non-Binary Woman President in HLR History!" or the like. It's become a matter of politics, and so -- ironically, both for students advantaged and non-advantaged by the increasing emphasis on diversity rather than merit -- Law Review has lost most of its value as an employment or job-market signal.

TLDR: don't sweat it, just get good grades and you'll be fine.

I can't speak for HLR/YLJ processes, but I was on the managing board of one of these top law reviews, and that was really only true for two positions: EIC and the officer in charge of the DEI stuff. For things like the articles board, we went for a mix of ideologies/interests/etc., and the majority-liberal board my year ended up picking a majority-conservative board for the current crop.

I was not on our membership selection committee, but I'll acknowledge that checkbox identity probably plays an outsized role in selection (though I would argue that having a diverse membership is in a journal's best interests beyond just optics). With that said, I had to supervise the work of editors in my managing board role, and I did not see any drop off in quality for people who might be labeled a "diversity candidate," and the worst work was submitted by a guy who I know is in the top 10 in his class. All this is to say that I think the whole thing about law review not being a meritocracy because it is not automatically given to the top 50 GPAs or whatever is totally overblown.

Finally, and more to your main point, I have never heard this take from someone who wasn't conservative, and frankly, I hear it most often from people who didn't make law review. It feels to me like a view held by a vocal minority rather than something that "everyone" in "the real world" believes to be true.

If you clerk and see the application packages you will understand that it is very obvious law review selection is not based primarily on grades and writing at almost all of the top schools. Those are the things that judges care about. It makes no sense to give a bump for law review anymore. Some judges still like to see journal work just so they know the bluebooking is up to par, but you can get that experience with secondary journals too.

And of course there is no drop off in work quality. Anyone with a high school diploma who wants to put in the time can do "quality" editing for law review purposes. It's not high-level work or anything. The entire law review racket is a joke. Law professors should at least peer review their own work so they can better pretend to be engaged in actual "academic research."

[Anonymous User]

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

Penn doesn't even have a single pure grade on slot. And the "writing" competition includes a personal statement and is basically a dumb creative writing exercise. It's not legal writing at all.

[Anonymous User]

Let's not derail another thread in the clerkship forum with Penn-specific stuff when it's not what the poster was asking for.

[Anonymous User]

Penn people seem pretty bitter ...

[Anonymous User]

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

Penn doesn't even have a single pure grade on slot. And the "writing" competition includes a personal statement and is basically a dumb creative writing exercise. It's not legal writing at all.

In theory, if it’s just based on writing competition, law review membership would say something about legal writing skills even if it didn’t say anything about grades. It’s ridiculous that Penn’s writing competition doesn’t even include *any* legal writing. Just a funny essay based on tiktoks and memes. Way worse than HLR even if you ignore the diversity BS. Penn Law Review only has ~half honors because there’s a correlation between putting effort into figuring out how to do well on the writing competition and putting effort into school generally.

[Anonymous User]

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

Penn doesn't even have a single pure grade on slot. And the "writing" competition includes a personal statement and is basically a dumb creative writing exercise. It's not legal writing at all.

In theory, if it’s just based on writing competition, law review membership would say something about legal writing skills even if it didn’t say anything about grades. It’s ridiculous that Penn’s writing competition doesn’t even include *any* legal writing. Just a funny essay based on tiktoks and memes. Way worse than HLR even if you ignore the diversity BS. Penn Law Review only has ~half honors because there’s a correlation between putting effort into figuring out how to do well on the writing competition and putting effort into school generally.

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented