MEMBERSHIP

Members are selected each year from among the law students who have completed their first year of full-time or second year of part-time studies at the law school. Law Review members are selected based either on their rank after final exams or on their performance in the Write-on Competition. 

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Changing your status may affect your eligibility to be invited to Law Review. Students are not eligible for selection to Law Review by virtue of their grade point averages until they have completed either their first year of full-time study or their first two years of part-time study. Thus, a student who changes their status during their first or second year may only be eligible for Law Review by participating in the Write-on Competition.

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Students transferring into Western New England School of Law are eligible for Law Review membership through participation in the Write-on Competition in May. 

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Students must have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher after final exams to be eligible for Law Review membership through participation in the Write-On Competition. If you are unsure whether your cumulative GPA will be a 3.0 at the start of the Write-on Competition, you may still complete the competition; however, any submissions by students with less than a 3.0 will not be considered.

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Frequently Asked Questions

 

How will the members of the Review be selected?

Each year, the Law Review invites new members from among the law students who have completed their first year of full-time or second year of part-time studies at the law school.

 

Law Review members are normally invited based either on their rank after final exams or on holistic consideration of their application, consisting of a case comment, personal statement, and an optional holistic consideration statement. Each volume of the Law Review normally has about sixteen junior staff members. Every year, including this year, the E-Board is not bound to a certain ratio of “grade-ons” versus “write-ons.” We recommend that every person who is interested in being on Law Review complete the write-on competition. Once invited, we make no distinction between “grade-ons” and “write-ons.”

 

Grade-on

After the write-on competition is complete, the E-Board will receive a list of the cumulative GPAs for students who have completed their first year of full-time or second year of part-time studies. For full-time first year students, the E-Board will also receive information/input from your Lawyering Skills professors regarding your performance on the written assignments that you completed during the second semester. It will be at the discretion of the E-Board to decide how many students will be invited onto the Review by “grading-on” after the write-on competition is graded. Even if you think there is a chance that you will receive a “grade-on” invitation, we strongly recommend that you participate in the write-on competition.

 

Write-on Application

Traditionally, students must have at least a 3.0 cumulative GPA after the spring semester to qualify for the write-on competition.

 

Your write-on application will consist of a case comment and personal statement. It may also include a holistic consideration statement. Your application materials will be anonymized by the Senior Note Editor.

 

The write-on submissions will be anonymously graded by the E-Board. After grading the submissions anonymously, the E-Board will then confirm that students meet the GPA requirement and review your personal statement / holistic consideration statement (if applicable). The E-board will conduct a holistic consideration of the entire application.

 

A Write-on Workshop will be held on in May. The meeting information can be found on the Application TWEN page.

 

What is the time frame for the write-on competition?

The case-comment prompt will be released in May on the Application TWEN page. All application materials (case comment, personal statement, and holistic consideration statement [if applicable]) must be submitted via TWEN.

 

What are the responsibilities of first year members?

Each associate member of the Law Review has two primary responsibilities.  First, each member must author a detailed scholarly article on a current legal issue, his or her student Note.  The research, writing, and editing of the Note begin in the summer and continue throughout the school year.  Notes are approximately forty to sixty pages long, including extensive citations. The writer has extensive freedom in choosing their topic so long as their Note satisfies the Law Review’s requirements. Second, each member will be assigned weekly production work for articles and Notes that have already been selected for publication.  This work includes “tech-citing,” a careful check of each article and Note, including verification of the proper citation form and substantive content of all footnotes, and proofreading of all articles and Notes.

 

Do you get academic credit for your work as a member of the Law Review?

Associate staff members receive three credits for the year for their work on Law Review, provided they fulfill their responsibilities according to the specifications of the Law Review.  Two of the three credits are awarded in the fall semester and one in the spring.  The credits for the second year of Law Review vary (2-3 credits) depending on the member’s role.

 

If I join Law Review, when does my commitment begin?

A mandatory orientation and training program for Law Review staff will be held in Late August. More information about orientation will be forthcoming.  In addition, first year members are required to begin researching the topic of their student Note and practice tech-citing prior to orientation.  Information on these assignments will be provided immediately after acceptance of your invitation.

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How much time should I expect to commit to the Law Review?

Law Review is a significant time commitment.  Most associate members put in between 10 and 15 hours a week regularly, and occasionally an additional 5 to 10 hours when a deadline is approaching.  In addition, members are required to return to school before normal registration in order to attend Law Review orientation and training.

 

Should I be concerned that my grades will suffer if I join Law Review?

Law Review members devote many hours to their work on the Review.  Members manage, however, to balance their classes with Law Review assignments.  Many Law Review students maintain or even improve their class rank.

 

What are the benefits of joining the Law Review?

Law Review members gain a variety of skills in working on Law Review:

 

Writing the Note

Law Review members have a unique opportunity to sharpen their legal research and writing skills.  The research required for a student Note is rigorous; members gain valuable experience in researching legislative history, statutory construction, and complex issues of the law, in addition to being exposed to scholarly legal writing on their topics.  Further, the process of writing and editing a student Note allows the student to explore a specific area of the law in depth, thus acquiring a level of expertise in a particular area rarely available through the traditional law school curriculum.  New members are assisted in the work on their Note by a Note Editor, a second-year member of the Law Review who is charged with working with a particular student to ensure that his or her Note makes progress toward possible publication.  In addition, each student’s work is reviewed by a faculty member who provides insight and helps direct the student’s organization and analysis.

 

Tech-Citing and Proofreading

By assisting in the editing of the articles and Notes selected for publication, members develop skills that are enormously useful in the practice of law, including expertise in proper Bluebook citation form.  In addition, members learn to work quickly and efficiently, and their improved abilities are useful in their work on their own Notes, as well as in other legal writing both during and after law school.

 

Career Opportunities

Students who have been on Law Review have a decided edge in applications for summer jobs and employment following law school.  Employers recognize the value of the skills that members acquire and are therefore quite interested in interviewing them for employment.  Working on Law Review can open doors for students who are interested in judicial clerkships, large and medium-sized firms (including those who participate in OCI at the Law School), and state and federal government positions.

 

Publication

Members have the opportunity to have their student Note published in the Review.  A published student Note is quite an achievement for the author.  The Review is available online on Westlaw and LexisNexis, so published student pieces are available to law students and legal scholars throughout the country.

 

Eligibility for Second Year Positions

Associate members who exhibit excellence in their assignments and whose Notes are of high quality are eligible for an Editorial Board position on the Law Review the following year. Editorial Board selections are made at the end of the member’s first year on the Review.

 

Contribution to the Law School

The Law Review offers an opportunity for Western New England University School of Law to showcase the scholarly work of its students.  The quality of the Review is therefore of great importance.  The publication of a high-quality Law Review enhances the image of the Law School in the eyes of employers, the judiciary, and legal scholars nationwide.  Members thus have an opportunity to actively affect the public opinion about the law school.

 

What is Tech-citing?

After a piece has been selected for publication—whether an article or a student Note—it is first edited by the Editorial Board staff.  After this initial edit, the piece is ready for a rigorous technical check.  We refer to this process as “tech-citing.”  The term refers to the process whereby citations are checked for proper Bluebook form and the substance of the text is verified.  Tech-citing, the substantive and technical analysis of text and citations, is crucial to maintaining a quality Law Review.  Tech-citing safeguards the integrity of our journal by ensuring that everything printed is correct and accurate.  It involves a detailed check of every written word and every cited source.

 

Tech-citing assignments are distributed by the Managing Editor / Assistant Managing Editor to the Associate Staff members, and consist of a section of text with the corresponding footnotes.  There are four parts to the technical check that must be completed by each Associate Staff member in order to properly tech-cite an Article or Note: (1) Bluebooking (ensuring each citation conforms to the

nineteenth edition of the Bluebook); (2) substance checking (checking to ensure that the source cited supports the author’s textual statement); (3) cite checking (ensuring that volume numbers, page numbers, dates, quotations, etc., are accurate); and (4) Shepardizing and Keyciting (verifying that the source cited is still authoritative).

 

Tech-citers must also scrutinize the text for grammatical errors.  The tech-citer should be cognizant that it is the Review’s policy to defer to the author’s style of writing.  The Review’s reference books should be consulted when textual problems are suspected.  The Merriam-Webster New International Dictionary is used for spelling and syllabication.  The Chicago Manual of Style should be consulted for general rules of grammar and style.  In addition, Garner's Modern English Usage is an excellent reference on writing.

 

Diligent tech-citers learn a great deal of law, research methods, citation techniques, use of footnotes, and some of the peculiarities of Law Review writing.  After the tech-citing stage is completed, the Production Editor gives the tech-citer’s work a scrupulous check and forwards their work to the Managing Editor.  Once the Managing Editor approves the work that has been completed, the piece is entered into the next phase of the production process.  The entire production process from start to finish takes fifteen weeks per article or Note.

 

Does anyone ever turn down an invitation to serve on Law Review?

Students occasionally turn down an invitation to join the Law Review for a number of reasons.  Students who choose not to return to the law school because they transfer to other law schools, or students who take a leave of absence, obviously are unable to accept the Law Review’s invitation.

 

If I transfer to another law school, will I be eligible to join Law Review at that school?

Law schools, including Western New England University School of Law, do not recognize invitations to join Law Review issued by any school other than their own, so the short answer to the question is no.  Some schools, however, permit transfer students to participate in a writing competition or have a process in place to gain a place on the Law Review.