There are probably many questions, so either hit "edit" and give your question a bold/header formatting and its own comment box; or, if you're not comfortable with that, use a fresh comment box from below.

-- MakalikaNaholowaa - 10 Apr 2008 / -- AndrewGradman - 10 Apr 2008

A few years ago I was given an assignment that I didn't have the experience to handle successfully. After watching me fumble for a bit, my mentor at the time called me into his office and said: "A good leader knows three things. He knows what he knows. He knows what he doesn't know. And he knows where to go to find out the stuff he needs to learn."

This was particularly important advice for me to receive because I am someone who compensates for insecurity by puffing up my chest and pushing forward, pretending to know what I don't know.

One way to maximize the power of this post, it seems, would be to put each other in touch with people in the legal community who have a particular insight about an issue. These people might be our classmates, professors, practitioners, or anyone else who might have a thing or two to say about this issue. -- AdamCarlis - 12 April 2008

Journals

Can someone remind me what the benefits of journal membership are? Does membership help build a set of legal skills or just expertise in blue-booking? I suppose Law Review carries some marketable prestige, but are the others also valued?

-- EdwardNewton - 10 Apr 2008

As far as journals go, I think it's more hype than substance. After being on a journal this year, it's a mixed experience. You definitely learn how to bluebook. But ask any 3L editors and they'll tell you that less than 30% is actually done right, and they just end up redoing the work. The best advice I got was to ignore the subject matter and take on the amount of work that you actually think you can handle. (How many times do they publish per year? Note requirement? Do you actually aid in selecting articles? Are the people generally cooperative or a little douchebaggy?) Those that I've counseled that took what they can handle, generally didn't mind the bluebooking grunt work and found the articles interesting.

-- MiaWhite - 10 Apr 2008

As to the value of journals, it seems some journal is a prerequisite to a clerkship. According to CLS's clerkship manual either 95% or 99%(I can't remember) of students receiving clerkships had a journal on their resume. I also remember hearing a judge speaking about the clerkship application process saying she removes all the applications that don't have journals first. The value of a clerkship is subjective. Eben mentioned in class his District clerkship allowed him to see the law at work. I also know firms offer a bonus in pay and seniority to many who join with clerkships completed. The journal clerkship correlation seems to be the most important thing I've learned about journals so far.

A question of my own: Who knows how easy or hard it is to fulfill your major or minor writing requirements outside of a journal note? Is the journal note the best way to fulfill these requirements or just a common method?

-- JulianBaez - 14 Apr 2008