The Last Of A Kind

Law Reviews are scholastic legal journals run and edited by law students. The purpose of which is to discuss legal topics, give students a chance to refine their writing and research skills, and make those on the Reviews work like a whipped mule for a year or two. I.U.-Indy is lucky to have 3 journals now and it is quite a prize for a student to land a spot on one. If your Note, a student's legal paper, actually gets published by a Law Review that is a tremendous honor and achievement.

Indiana International &Comparative Law Review had solely a write-on contest for the last 14 years to get in new members like myself. Score 70 points on essay and you were invited to join. Indiana Law Review automatically invited the top 10% of the class based on grade point average and a few people wrote-on as well. The new Indiana Health Law Review had the write-on contest and a minimum GPA requirement of a 3.0, a B average.

The problem is that people look at such requirements that include the GPA factor or that top 10% (which is just a variation of GPA), and figured that there must be a hierarchy of prestige. ILR must be the most prestigious, this new IHLR must still be pretty good, and hey, II&CLR will accept anyone so they're the scholastic version of a Hyundai. I've always argued that would I get a better education at Harvard, Yale, or Stanford than here? I don't think so. In the real nuts and bolts, workingman world I exist in prestige doesn't mean anything. Yet superintelligent, hyper-competitive people such as law students fall for this trap.

I admire and respect many of my friends and colleagues in the ILR offices that are next door, but even some of them fall for that trap. It is not intentional on their part, but sometimes in conversation or in listening to discussions it seems to sometimes slip out that they are the elite Mercedes of the journals here.

I found out yesterday that my review, the II&CLR, was upgrading their requirements to be an automatic invite to the top 10%, or the 70 points on the essay AND a top 40% requirement. Why do this? It boils down to several changes in class structure and a need to be perceived better in reputation and prestige. I understand the reasoning. I can agree with it to an extent. In many ways perception is reality. It would be rare that someone not in at least the top half of the class would be able to put out quality work or that such a person be able to handle a standard class load and the extraordinary responsibilities of being on a law review. Such a person would be an anomaly.

Yet I did it. It is unlikely I'll ever be in the top half of my graduating class, yet I wrote a Note that will be published this year. I will be the last of my kind, an anomaly. I understand the world needs to move on, yet I feel so sorry for those that may not shine on the bell curve of GPA, yet have the interest and desire to do the work, and just maybe the talent to have a paper worthy of being published.

To my first year mentees that I have sheparded this past year...do well on your final exams. It is your only hope now.