Interview: Eddie O'Brien, Comedian, 2L, and Next Year's Editor-in-Chief of the U of L Law Review

There are plenty of things that are unfair about law school, but in my opinion the law review is not one of them. As a member and editor of the school's flagship journal, I've learned invaluable editing, writing, and research skills, and my grades played only a marginal role in getting there. Being willing to work hard was way more important. Same goes for Eddie O'Brien, the new Editor-in-Chief of the University of Louisville Law Review and the focus of today's interview. Eddie is a 2L, a volunteer with the local chapter of Big Brothers, and a clerk at the firm of Weber & Rose. More importantly, he has a reputation for being a hard worker, a guy who gets things done, but also has a sense of humor and gets along with everybody. Eddie's story is a must-read for any law school applicant who thinks high grades are the only key to success. Have an idea for a law-related interview? Send it to me at acdavi07@louisville.edu.

Name: Eddie O'Brien 

O'Brien

Age: 23

Hometown: I was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and most of my family still lives in the Baltimore-Washington area. When I was 5, I moved to Kentucky, and then moved to the Houston area when I was 13, where I attended high school and completed my undergraduate studies.

Before law school:: I graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science from Sam Houston State University. During undergrad, I worked three days a week as a substitute teacher at the high school level.

After law school: Like most law students, I am still struggling with this. I know that I have no interest in civil litigation. Right now my aim is to clerk for a judge for a year or two and then enter an LL.M. program in the D.C. area. As an alternative route, I might like to try my hand at being a prosecutor or litigating on behalf of a governmental agency. I would eventually like to teach and spend my days writing and telling students why they're wrong. 

Why did you choose U of L Law?

I was immediately attracted by the responsiveness and friendliness of the admissions staff. The fact that I had ties in the area and the (relatively) inexpensive cost were major factors in my decision. Almost every day, something reminds me that I made the right choice: I have made great friends, been fortunate to learn from distinguished faculty who really know their stuff, and the atmosphere here is far more relaxed and open than other law schools. 

What's been the toughest thing for you in law school so far?

Law school. It is all-encompassing; you're either all in or you're out. I suppose the most difficult thing has been learning to prioritize, which is code for doing well while still maintaining some semblance of a social life. Also, law school and sleep are in constant competition, and law school inevitably wins. I had been hoping to achieve a bit more balance there as well, but then I was chosen as Editor-in-Chief. So much for that. 

How do you deal with the stress of school?

By remembering that while school matters, it's not the only thing. Particularly in your first year, you're almost conditioned to treat law school as a bubble -- you spend all of your time either in this building or studying at home, and even when you go out with friends, most of those friends are in law school with you and conversations almost always turn to the subject of law school. Getting out of that bubble while still succeeding within it is a big challenge. I used to count "pleasure reading" as a reliable and enjoyable diversion; no longer. The words "pleasure" and "reading" are juxtapositionally grotesque. So, I spent a lot of time going out with friends, staring at the television, arguing about sports and politics, and playing with my insanely cute dog.

I also feel obligated to give a shout out to the 1Ls in my Structured Study Group. Being an Academic Fellow really has been one of the most rewarding experiences in law school; it's fun to see 1Ls today and realize that not too long ago, I was just like them: both ambitious and nervous, determined and reserved. It's always nice to try to impart to them that this isn't as hard as it seems, and that next year they'll marvel in disbelief at just how much unnecessary pressure 1Ls place on themselves. So, in a sense, one of my diversions is encouraging 1Ls to find their own diversions. 

The job market for new lawyers is tough out there. How do you plan to attack it?
By avoiding it for as long as possible. (Kidding). All anyone can do is go out there and find something that they want to do and do everything they can to get a job in that area. I don't mean to make a statement that is so self-evident; it's just that I know from personal experience how indescribably big of a mistake it is to "settle" for a job. Beggars certainly can't be choosers, but there is nothing worse than hanging your lovely and impressive J.D. in an elaborate frame in an office where you will spend 50 hours a week being bored out of your mind. I am not sure how I'm going to attack the job market, but one of the key parts of my plan (whenever it may be devised) will be to avoid boredom. 

Congrats on being named Editor in Chief of the law review for next year. What's the big deal about being on law review anyway? 
Everyone loves the Bluebook, and law review is a great opportunity to get more intimate with the Bluebook. And like everything else, the Bluebook just gets better with age (it is in its nineteenth edition).

To paraphrase one of my predecessors, law review is what you make it. It provides an opportunity for students to learn the ins and outs of legal research (beyond what any first-year course can teach you) and writing, but perhaps most importantly, it gives students an opportunity to distinguish themselves. If you make it onto law review, you've demonstrated that you're part of the so-called "law school elite" (I prefer something less pompous, like law school gods). Law review also provides you with the opportunity to get your work published (yet another opportunity to distinguish yourself), and, of course, to attain an Editorial Board position. All of these are things that employers want to see. Finally, law review offers students the opportunity to earn up to seven hours of academic credit (which is a big chunk of the 90 hours you need to graduate).

The trade-off? It's a lot of work. But we don't talk about that. 

Why did you apply for the top job?

I like to be where the action is (in this context, anyway). The University of Louisville Law Review is fifty years old, so there is a great deal of history and a whole lot of tradition to preserve, but the future is just as important. I hope to build on the efforts of previous boards to improve the reputation and quality of the publication, and we have put together a great team for next year that I think will make considerable progress in that effort. I am very grateful for the confidence that my colleagues have placed in me; my job is to make sure that I don't screw things up, and hopefully even make things better. 

What advice would you offer to someone who is thinking about going to law school?
Think it through. Law school is a major commitment, not just for the three or four years you're in it, but for the rest of your life. I'm not talking only about those terrible student loan bills. Move beyond the threshold question of "do I want to go to law school?" and ask yourself what you plan on doing after law school. As someone who is more than half way through, I would certainly have attempted to develop a more realistic (and informed) game plan for myself. Bottom line: think it through. 

Click, Click, Submit: How to Become a Legal Scholar in Less Than Ten Minutes

As I get closer to graduation in May, it's becoming more and more obvious that ....


     A. Even after two clerkships, an externship, and a volunteer job at a legal clinic, I still have very little experience in the law.


     B. The importance of networking with lawyers and other members of the legal community cannot be underestimated.


     C. With just five months to go before graduation, I need to find ways to leverage my forthcoming J.D. and make it look as impressive as possible.


     D. All of the Above.


The answer, of course, is D. And if law school has taught me anything over the last three years (in addition to answering all questions with "it depends") it is to find creative solutions to problems, which brings me to my Discovery of the Day: how to become an instant legal scholar using SSRN, the Social Science Research Network. Most students go to law school to become lawyers, not scholars. Why not be both? You can create an account using SSRN and use it to publish that obscure 25-page tome that you cranked out for your writing requirement. Assuming you've already written the thing, the publishing process only takes about ten minutes (your submission has to meet certain requirements, which you can read about here).


I credit Dean Jim Chen with the SSRN idea. This morning, I posted an abstract for a law review note I finished a few weeks ago. One of the cool things about SSRN is that you can share writing that has not yet been published in hard copy. Chen, for example, just posted an early version of a forthcoming article titled "A Degree of Practical Wisdom: The Ratio of Educational Debt to Income as a Basic Measurement of Law School Graduates’ Economic Viability." You can read the abstract by clicking here, or check out the full version by clicking on the "download" link at the top of the page. As soon as my exams are over, I'm planning to post the 42-page monster of a law review note that I wrote last year about medical marijuana and the military. The Veterans Health Administration, a key source for the note, still has not responded to my year-old FOIA request, and last year's journal editors ultimately rejected the note for publication (less than half of all notes are actually accepted). Now, however, it's going to see the light of day, and I'll be a published (sort of) legal scholar two times over. 


In the coming months, I'm going to write more about networking and job hunting. Got your own nifty idea? Post it in the comments field below, or email me at acdavi07@louisville.edu. 

Proposed tuition hike creates stir at U of L Law

The SBA's tuition poster

If you're thinking about going to law school, you probably already know about the dire employment situation for graduates, and the massive amount of debt you are going to rack up over the next three years. You also may know that here at Louisville, we rest our reputation on being a "value school" where you can get a solid J.D. without a six-figure tab. That doesn't mean students here are happy with the price they're paying for tuition, especially when it comes to the out-of-state rate. Over the last few days, there's been growing concern over plans to jack up tuition again -- by another six percent, plus a proposed fee of $206.

Our law school is typically not prone to controversy. In my time here, there have been no major protests like this one, and certainly no scandals like this one or this one. But there's good reason to be concerned about skyrocketing tuition, and I am glad the S.B.A. (Student Bar Association) is raising its eyebrows. In a recent letter to Dean Jim Chen and members of the administration, the group decried the proposed increases, and a related reduction in the law library's budget. The letter noted that students will be paying roughly $1,200 more next year with the latest increase, and that tuition across the university will have increased 83 percent since 2004. For even more startling figures, see the poster (image, above right) that the SBA is circulating to drum up awareness about the issue. The fine print is hard to read, but the smallest number represents tuition in 1992-93. The bottom two numbers show proposed rates next year for in-state and out-of-state students, respectively.
I'm no expert on this issue, but I do have a couple of (barely educated) opinions. For starters, the tuition problem is not isolated to Louisville, and in many ways it's a smaller issue here that it is in other places. For a glimpse of a truly horrifying law school tuition debacle, check out this excellent article about a private law school in New York City where the tuition is nearly $50,000 a year -- about the same as the typical starting salary for graduates. At Louisville, therefore, I don't think we need to use a sledgehammer to swat a fly. Still, a hike of more than 6 percent in an awful economy just doesn't make sense to me when one of our claims to fame is value. If the school absolutely must extract more money for its budget, here are the two areas where I would focus:

1. Tuition for in-state students. If students are going to bear the burden, let's keep costs down for out-of-staters. Protectionist tuition policies for Kentucky residents like myself are fine, but I don't mind shouldering a little more of the burden. Plus, by keeping tuition increases at a minimum for out-of-staters, we'll attract more quality out-of-state applicants, which in turn will preserve our precious spot in the Holy Grail.
2. Faculty scholarship. I may not make many friends on this one, but it's hard for me to understand why law school professors in general, and ones at U of L in particular, are expected to spend close to half of their time on scholarship. Sure, writing the occasional law review article is fine, and attending symposia is OK too. But seriously, close to half of their time? Clients at the law firm where I work often blanch at a one-third contingent fee. Reducing the scholarship quota to one quarter, or even one-third, would allow professors to teach more classes, which would either reduce class sizes, or allow us to offer more quality courses, or both. Of course, we also could save tons of money by employing fewer professors and keeping class sizes the same, but the Holy Grail is not going to let that happen.

These two ideas are a starting point in the conversation. I'm sure others have additional, and probably better, opinions. Got a thought of your own? Post it in the comments field below. Also, check out the survey on law school tuition at the upper right of this screen.

A Day in the Life of a Law Student: Busy, Busy

So you want to go to law school? Better get your calendar ready. Life is about to get busy. My day started at 6:25 a.m. and is almost over as the clock ticks past 11 p.m. Between those two goalposts, here is what I did:

• 6:25 a.m. -- Check email, take a quick look at Secured Transactions reading assignment, sip cup of tea, pay a few bills. 
• 7:15 -- Shower, make breakfast for kids, pick out dress clothes for deposition later in day. 
• 8:00 -- Arrive at law school after dropping kids off at Brown School downtown. 
• 8 to 8:55 -- Study Secured Transactions like hell hath no fury. Hope I am not called on in class. 
• 9 to 10:15 -- Pound notes into my keyboard during Secured Transactions, and give thanks that I am not called on in class. 
• 10:15 to 10:25 -- Walk to post office (highlight of the morning) to ship a law school book to some guy who bought it from me on Amazon. Score $70!
• 10:30 to noon -- Put finishing touches on 6,400-word essay (excluding footnotes) for law review, and wonder why I agreed to go through the torture of writing two different law review notes. 
• Noon to 1 p.m. -- Study like mad for Negotiable Instruments; wolf down cold leftover mac and cheese from kids' dinner two nights ago. Hmmm. 
• 1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. -- Feeling pretty good in Negotiables, actually enjoying the material in a geek-out sort of way. Professor somehow makes topic interesting. 
• 2:15 to 3:30 -- Put on tie, prepare for mock deposition exercise by frantically reviewing dozens of pages of documents and notes about a fictitious car wreck. Run into another student in the library and briefly talk about law school ping-pong tournament that we've both entered. Enter library, run into student who is opposing counsel. He asks me if I'm ready. I say yes, but only because there is no other choice. 
• 3:30 to 4:30 -- Depose another student's wife in a second-floor classroom in front of a video camera, feeling bad for her the entire time but relishing the chance to dig up information in an adversarial setting. This is why I want to become a lawyer, damnit. 
• 4:30 -- Check email from senior partner at law firm where I clerk. Find message about opposing counsel filing tons of discovery documents in mass tort case that I am managing. Ponder how that, and related deadlines and obligations, are going to dominate the rest of my week. 
• 4:30 to 5:45 -- Realize that the format of my legal citations for the law review essay is absolutely inadequate,  and spend lots of time trying to fix things. 
• 6 p.m. -- Come home, hang out with kids and wife, watch them eat dinner, and later play Chutes and Ladders with my 5-year-old. I win. 
• 7 p.m. -- Soccer game at Mockingbird with my men's indoor team. One of our key players has just returned from cancer treatment after being off for several months. He is an inspiration. I score two goals, and we win 5 to 3. Beer on me after the game.
• 9:10 -- Damn law review essay still isn't finished. Switch to red wine, think about reading for Criminal Procedure, and instead spend an hour fixing the last citations and polishing the main text of the essay. Send final draft to top editors. Major sigh of relief. 
• 10:30 -- Draft a lease for a friend who owns rental property and asks me for help. Good networking opportunity. Losing steam. Try to stay focused. 
• 11:15 -- Crap, the blog hasn't had a new post in a week. How does that happen?

On this Date: Looking Back at 1L and 2L

A year ago, I was writing about my second-year classes, and posting an interview with Kimberly Ballard, the law school's director of academic success. Two years ago, still a very green 1L, I was writing about my first brush with mid-term exams, and a successful but somewhat unlikely campaign to buy a golf hat from my Torts professor for $1,040. Today, as I sit in the law review offices writing this post, I am increasingly finding it hard to keep my focus on law school, and away from the bar exam and job prospects (latest guilty pleasure: looking at Facebook profiles of recent graduates to see who is working and where). In addition to classes, I am also working on an interview with Jim Chen, the dean of our law school for the last five years. I sat down with him for nearly two hours last week to discuss education, law reviews, and what it is like to be one of the only individuals in the world who have worked for both Clarence Thomas and Barack Obama. Did you know that he also used to live in Iceland?

Photo of the Week: A Bunch of Random Books

Part of the Washer Lounge library

The latest Photo of the Week is far more significant than the title to this blog post might suggest. For starters, U of L Law isn't known for a lot of frills. We don't have vaulted ceilings and chandeliers in our library like this school, or a program that lets you borrow a dog for 30 minutes from the library if you're feeling stressed out at this school. Come to think of it, maybe our lack of fancy perks is part of the reason we're the Number 3 best value law school in the nation? Either way, we do have a nice atmosphere, and I think U of L does a terrific job of helping students combat the stress of law school, which brings me to the photo of the books, at right. They're part of an informal recreational library in the Washer Lounge that, sadly, I have only discovered after being here for almost two years. If you want to take home a novel or a mystery or whatever, it's on the honor system. Just fill out the card in the back of the book and put the card in a box on the shelf. From a quick glance at the box, it appears that some students have been reading the same title for two years or longer. Ahem.
Prospective law students might think that they'll never have time to do personal reading during the semester. I've found, however, that reading a novel on the side, even for 15 minutes before I fall asleep, is a great way to stay grounded and remember that law school isn't the most important thing in the universe. Other entries on my list of Things That Remind Me Law School Isn't the Most Important Thing in the Universe: my lovely wife, my awesome kids, cold beer, home improvement projects, and long-distance running (but not necessarily in that order, and definitely not all at the same time; that would be dangerous).
I recently finished reading Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. It was a fantastic read, and it helped me get over the absolutely crushing defeat of having my law review note rejected for publication. OK, maybe not a crushing defeat, although I was bummed out. But how can you be upset about a tiny detail like that when you're reading about a frail 93-year-old man in a nursing home recalling his life on a circus train in the 1930s? The point is, you've got to stay grounded. You've got to have a life, which is one of the reasons that I think having a family in law school is a big advantage. If you aren't married, or don't have kids, or even if you do, the Washer library is worth checking out. It might even be a good fit with that cold beer.

Journal 101: What I Learned in My First Year on the University of Louisville Law Review

When I learned that I had been selected to join the University of Louisville Law Review almost a year ago, I had two first impressions. The first was from a good friend, also a law student, who told me this: "Congratulations, you're going to hate it." The second was a line from The Pelican Brief, a John Grisham book that I happened to be reading at the time: "She suspected most law reviews and law journals were much the same. The top students hung out there and prepared their scholarly articles and comments. They were superior to the rest of the students, and were a clannish bunch who appreciated their brilliant minds. They hung out in the law journal suite. It was their second home." As it turned out, there was only a small shred of truth in both of these impressions. 
Being on law review has not always been a walk in the park, but then again, as one of our editors once told us, if law review was easy everyone would do it. In fact, the experience has been much more enjoyable than I expected, and more valuable. Because I think other students would benefit from an inside scoop on the so-called "journal," I'm offering a three-part series in this blog, focused loosely on the three biggest benefits of law review: experience, networking, and job prospects (disclaimer: I didn't come up with these three categories; they were described by the journal's current editor-in-chief at a recent informational meeting for 1Ls). 
I'm focusing on the experience category today. Law review is generally a two-year commitment, although the duties vary for individual members. A senior notes editor, for example, might put in 300 hours or more of work in a single academic year. The editor in chief probably puts in 30 hours every single week on top of classes. Other editors put in much less time. First-year members of the law review are obligated to spend one hour a week in the office doing editing work. We also are responsible for editing and cite-checking part of a scholarly article or note about once every two or three weeks. These projects are the meat and potatoes of law review. They're time consuming, detail oriented, and in some cases incredibly boring. But after doing about a dozen of them over the last ten months, I feel miles ahead in terms of my confidence in legal research and writing. I can find sources on Lexis and Westlaw lickety split, and tell you in the blink of an eye if a citation needs to be in italics or small capitals. If you think those skills won't matter in the real world, wait until your supervising partner hands you an appellate brief that is due in four hours and asks if you can make sure there are no errors. Any type of law-related work, from Legal Aid to Biglaw to a solo practice, requires attention to detail. Law review is a pretty good way to get it. 

The other major commitment of a first-year law review member is the dreaded note. I say dreaded because, even as a former journalist who wrote articles for a living, any time you are staring at a 25-page writing assignment (excluding footnotes), life feels a little scary. Fortunately, the process is divided into very manageable smaller parts, and there is a terrific support network in place. I had a faculty member read through my drafts and give me feedback. My notes editor, a 3L, also provided guidance. Even so, the note felt like I was giving birth to a baby, with the labor divided into five or six big pushes starting last summer and ending in late February. My wife will tell me that's a stupid analogy, but I can't think of anything better. Writing the note gave me a great appreciation for the amount of research that goes into a serious piece of legal writing. In the end I used 185 footnotes, including Supreme Court cases, federal agency directives, bits of congressional hearings, magazine articles, even phone interviews with professors at other law schools. The great thing about the note, at least at our law review, is that the topic can be pretty much anything. You can write about using miniature ponies as guide animals for blind people (see photo, above right), or analyze the pros and cons of new sentencing guidelines for crack users. I wrote about a new medical marijuana policy at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.  The topic appealed to me because pot presents interesting federalism issues (legalized to some extent in 15 states, but still banned under federal law), and because marijuana's legal status is shifting under the Obama administration. Only about half of the student-written notes are actually published in the law journal, but either way the note satisfies our writing requirement for graduation. I'm hoping that my note is selected for publication, but either way I feel grateful for the experience. I admit there have been patches of tedium and even dread in my first year of law review, but I can honestly say that the larger part of the year has been filled with great experiences that have given me skills and tools that will be incredibly helpful as a lawyer. In the weeks ahead, keep an eye out for the next two parts of the law review series: networking, and job prospects. 

Hope (Sort of) Springs Eternal: Top 10 Signs that Spring is on the Way at Louisville Law

This semester of law school has been the toughest for me in terms of workload. In the last week, for example, I've completed a 43-page law review note, a draft of a 10-page will for our Decedents' Estates class, a three-page essay for Constitutional Law, and a job application for an editorial position at the law review. Throw in the usual crushing reading assignments, and a few shifts at my part-time clerk job at a law firm, and you get the picture. Life is busy. At the same time, there are glimmers of hope in the long, dark tunnel of law school. If nothing else, the weather is warmer. With that in mind, here's Yet Another Top 10 List, this time focusing on signs of spring.

10. Yellow crocuses in my front yard (photo, at right).

9. Speaking of seeds, March Madness is almost here. The latest projections show the Cards as a 4 seed, and the Cats as a 5. Not too shabby for either team.

8. It's crunch time for 1Ls, who are finishing their briefs for Basic Legal Skills. I do not envy you. In terms of stress, my 43-page law review note was nothing compared to the dreaded first-year brief.

7. The Humana Festival of New American Plays is running at Actors Theatre in downtown Louisville.

6. The Kentucky Derby is starting to get a little buzz around town. My favorite horse so far: Mucho Macho Man. You can't go wrong with a name like that.

5. Speaking of races, we're one leg into the Triple Crown of Running, a series of three road races in Louisville before the Derby. Congratulations to all of the Student Health Law Association runners who took part in the Anthem 5k last weekend. Go Ambulance Chasers!

4. Prospective law students are freaking out about where they will attend law school next year. My best advice: don't spend too much time at this Web site. It'll drive you crazy.

3. U of L law students are wearing fancy clothes to school. Some are interviewing for summer jobs. Others are starting summer clerkships early.

2. We're less than a week away from the annual Mardi Gras party at the law school. It's a little reserved compared to the New Orleans version, but still fun.

1. We're halfway through the semester, and a skip away from spring break. That means 3L students are a ridiculous 91.7 percent of the way through law school. 2Ls are 58.3 percent of the way through, and 1Ls are 25 percent done. Prospective law students are, well, still 0L. But you're that much closer to starting.

Summer Clerkship starts early -- on winter break

Final exams have come and gone at U of L Law, and winter break has finally started. I figured this would be a great time to catch up on overdue errands, hang out with friends, do some work around the house, and drink beer in the middle of the day. I was wrong. This morning, less than 48 hours after the last test, I found myself sitting at a desk on the seventh floor of a building in downtown Louisville, suing a major pharmaceutical company. The summer clerkship started a bit early this year. Way, way early. But when the boss calls and says he needs help, the answer is “yes.” And while I will miss the down time, it’s tough to understate how thrilling it is to put into practice all of the things you learn in a stuffy classroom. It’s one thing to debate the nuances of a 70-year-old Supreme Court case with your classmates. It’s a completely different thing to be drafting documents for a severely injured client in a lawsuit, with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line. I still plan to carve out time on the break to work on my law review note, see friends and family, and enjoy the holiday. For now, it seems that the beer will be relegated to the evenings. Have plans of your own? Take my winter break survey, at right. 

Clubs v. Classes: the schedule tightrope of a 2L

It is said that the first year of law school scares you to death, the second works you to death, and the third bores you to death. Now that I'm close to halfway through the second year, I can testify to the truth of the first and second parts of this equation. Actually, the courses are perhaps one of the easiest parts of being a 2L. Sure, there's a lot of reading. Sure, there are exams looming on the horizon. But that's only half of it. Partly because my law resume is still looking a bit threadbare, I try to keep at least a few other balls in the air. My list of extracurriculars:

• member, U of L Law Review
• treasurer, Student Health Law Association
• volunteer, Legal Aid Society will clinic
• blogger, Office of Admissions

Plenty of other 2Ls have much more ambitious schedules. Quite a few even manage to find time to work for law firms part-time while they take classes. Striking a balance between classes and law-related activities is not always easy, but it's a vital part of the experience. Volunteering at a legal clinic, for example, is a great way to learn how to interview real clients. The blog keeps me informed about stuff  going on at the school and elsewhere, and the health law association offers a window into a very specialized area of law that I otherwise would not learn much about in classes. Special plug: tomorrow at noon in Room 275, the Speaker's Bureau of MHAKY (Mental Health America of Kentucky), will present the next topic in the school's Diversity Forum Series, "Severe Mental Illness, Stigma, and the Value of Treatment." The event is co-sponsored by the Diversity Committee and, you guessed it, the Student Health Law Association. And yes, there will be pizza.
I plan to write more about the law review in future posts, but in the meantime I can say that it's made me a much better writer, and contributed, at least indirectly, to landing a part-time job for next summer at a downtown law firm. The lesson in all of this, if there is one at all, is that it is never too early for prospective law students and 1Ls to think about some of the activities that they will pursue in their second and third years of school. They will help to shape your law school experience, and help you decide what you do when you finish. But choose wisely. Don't work yourself to death. 

New year of law school, new blog focus

With my second year of law school just a few short days away, I am gearing up to resume regular posts on this blog.  For the next year, I will be writing about careers, job interviews, the transition from 1L to 2L, and other random snippets of life at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law. I highly encourage folks to check out the school's new 1L blogger, Sharon Wright, at www.1llouisvillelaw.blogspot.com. 

In the weeks to come, I will be writing about my summer clerkship with Louisville's finest divorce lawyer (in case you're reading, Mr. Hoge), and about the on-campus interview process for upper-level law students this fall. I also will be touching on the experience of being a member of the school's law review, which, so far, has been just like a free trip to Disney World. Well, OK, that's not true at all. But it has been rewarding. More on that later. 

Law review terrifies, tantalizes

Law school is amazing in so many ways, but perhaps the most amazing thing about the 1L experience has been the way it swings my emotions. Like my 4-year-old son just before bedtime, I can go from unbridled happiness and confidence to the depths of despair and stress, all in the space of a few minutes. The minister at my church, who has a law degree himself, told me last year that law school is like a one-way ratchet. Just when you felt you had everything under control, your reading finished for all six classes, your appellate brief firmly underway, your summer job interviews in the bag, there's some fresh hell to figure out.
In this case, it's law review. A bunch of us 1Ls attended an information session this week to learn more about U of L's three scholarly journals, which will review applications this spring. The main journal will take perhaps two dozen of us, and the work will begin almost immediately (translation: over summer break). Each student will have at least half a dozen "assignments" during the course of the next school year, requiring an estimated six to eight hours of work apiece. Then there's an additional 25-page assignment, which satisfies the law school's writing requirement and could end up being published.
I am told that making law review is one of the biggest career boosters for a law student. It stays on your resume for decades, opens doors with big firms, and without it a federal clerkship is all but impossible. Even after being elected president, Barack Obama (above right) is still frequently described as the former chief of the Harvard Law Review. I was heartened to learn that the application process at U of L, at least this year, gives roughly equal weight to grade point average and writing ability. Resumes also are taken into account. The competition is fierce. You can even buy books that purport to help you get accepted. I suspect that I will make a try for it, but not without some misgivings. I already worry, for example, that law school takes too much time away from my kids and family. And while there are practical applications to editing law review articles and writing notes, critics say the process is drudgery and the end result is obscure. In a way, however, this tension epitomizes the things that are good and bad about law school. The opportunities for success and achievement are seemingly limitless. Same goes for the stress and the work load. The freedom we each have to choose our own path is so expansive it's frightening. But I guess that's why I'm here in the first place. Good luck to everyone who plans to apply this spring.