Georgetown Law Journal

Dear Rising Second-Year Students, 

 Congratulations on nearing the end of your first year!  After finishing exams, I hope that you take a moment to relax and recover—and then devote a full week to the Write-On competition.  When you rank the journals by preference, I encourage you to rank The Georgetown Law Journal first.

 The Journal, celebrating its 102nd anniversary next year, is one of the oldest and most prestigious law reviews in the country.  Our generalist approach offers members a unique opportunity to deepen their understanding of diverse legal subjects.  The Journal offers a broad range of opportunities for students, including:

Scholarship:  Each year, the Journal selects for publication approximately twenty articles from more than two thousand submissions.  This process offers an unparalleled opportunity to interact with—and critique—the work of the world’s most prominent legal scholars.  In addition to selecting and editing articles, Journal members write a scholarly note on any legal topic of their choice.  Journal members may submit their work for publication in both the print Journal and The Georgetown Law Journal Online. 

Public Interest:  Each second-year member has the opportunity to contribute to the Annual Review of Criminal Procedure (ARCP), also known as the “practitioner’s bible” for the federal criminal bar.  The ARCP is an incredibly visible and widely used legal publication, utilized by judges, practitioners, academics, and litigators.  The ARCP also serves as a vehicle for social justice and public outreach—it is one of the greatest resources for prisoners and public interest organizations across the country.  The ARCP thus contributes to a more holistic Journal experience, allowing members to hone their technical and substantive editing skills while contributing to an invaluable publication that has a concrete impact on the lives of individuals. 

Community:  The Journal offers students a supportive and welcoming community, bringing together dynamic individuals from diverse backgrounds.  During their time on the Journal, members form lasting personal and professional relationships that continue far beyond the initial two years of membership—in February, our First Annual Alumni Banquet brought together nearly 200 past and current Journal members from across the nation.  All Journal members are encouraged to participate in our mentoring program, social activities, and professional networking events.

Leadership:  The Journal offers numerous leadership opportunities, helping members develop marketable skills that will aid them throughout their legal careers.  Upon the successful completion of their staff duties, all second-year members will be promoted to editorial positions.  Members may lead committees, spearhead initiatives, or serve on the Journal’s Senior Board.

Membership:  Students must preference the Journal first to be considered for membership.  Students may earn membership in any of three ways:

(1)   40% of our new members will be accepted solely on the basis of their Write-On scores.

(2)   40% of our new members will be accepted on the basis of a formula that equally weighs Write-On scores and grades.

(3)   20% of our new members will be selected solely on the basis of their Personal Statement, provided that they have scored in the top third of Write-On submissions.  Every student is encouraged to submit an optional Personal Statement describing how his or her diverse background will contribute to the membership and/or scholarship of the Journal.

If you have any questions, I encourage you to reach out to me or any other member of the Journal, and to visit our website at www.georgetownlawjournal.org.  I hope you will preference the Journal first—not only for the doors it will open throughout your legal career, but also for the skills you will develop, the first-class scholarship you will publish, and the friends and colleagues with whom you will work over the next two years.  I look forward to welcoming many of you into our community as staff members in the fall!

Best regards, 

Shauna M. Kramer

Editor-in-Chief

smk94@law.georgetown.edu 

Journal of Law and Modern Critical Race Persectives

Dear first-year students,

The Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives (MCRP) is among the most legally and socially relevant journals you will find on a law school campus. Topics of race, ethnicity, and identity have expanded beyond classroom discussion to form an integral part of ongoing debates about societal progress and political decisionmaking. Since our founding in 2007, we have become a solid fixture in Georgetown’s journal community, and I hope you will consider joining us as we continue to grow in size and prestige.

 MCRP is grounded in Critical Race Theory. Among the most important theorists in this field are Georgetown Professors Mari Matsuda, Charles Lawrence, Paul Butler, and Gary Peller. Our journal is a scholarly forum for these and other academics and professionals who are committed to seeking racial justice, advancing civil rights and civil liberties, and discussing the unique challenges facing society in our postmodern, race-conscious society. These themes implicate a wide range of topics; this year alone, we have published or will soon publish articles—including several student notes—on the implications of patents for biotechnologies that alter ethnic traits, the rhetorical shortcomings of Supreme Court affirmative action jurisprudence, racial disparities in the labor market, the future of the Voting Rights Act, and much more.

 One of the benefits to being a part of a socially progressive, subject-specific journal is the small staff size and the camaraderie that accompanies it. MCRP is a team, and we include the perspectives of all of our members throughout the decision-making process. Staff editors play an integral role in the organization—ideas for article solicitation, symposium topics, and ways to improve the journal are always welcome. Next year, we will institute a mentorship program for our incoming 2Ls, in which the Executive Board will work closely with the staff editors in note topic selection and publication, editing skills, and journal administration.

 We provide unique opportunities for student activism and publication. We organize group volunteer activities with local non-profits in Washington, DC, and we try to cooperate with as many student and community groups as possible to advance our mission outside the confines of the printed page. Unlike most other journals, we publish every student note of sufficient quality, not just a few per year. In addition, we ask each staff editor to write a brief reaction to an article being published in MRCP, and we publish the reactions alongside the corresponding articles. Over the summer, we will establish a blog, in which we plan to publish student submissions throughout the year. Simply put, we want to publish as much of our students’ work as possible, adding to ongoing dialogues regarding race and the law.

 In determining membership, we rely on Write On scores, grades, and a résumé and personal statement, in that order of weight. We strongly encourage every student to submit a personal statement along with the required résumé, as we want to make as individualized an assessment of each candidate as possible. Please contact me if you want to know anything more about our journal and your potential place on it. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Noah Matthew Rich

Editor in Chief, Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives

nmr34@law.georgetown.edu 

Journals: No Credit for Work

A recent concerted push by journal Editor-In-Chief to increase credit hours left campus buzzing with both excitement and anxiety. Ten of the eleven journals banded together this semester to submit a unified proposal requesting credit for journal work. The EIC Roundtable, comprised of the Editors-In-Chief of the journals, decided to take concrete action this academic year by brainstorming, drafting a proposal, and working with Dean William Treanor and the Academic Standards Committee on getting some sort of credit for journal work. 

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House of Cards Addiction

Netflix released its self-developed series House of Cards on a Friday.  By the following Monday, I had finished all thirteen of the fifty-minute episodes of the first season and was Googling release dates for season two. When I first came across the concept of Netflix’s iteration of the political thriller House of Cards, I was skeptical.  Anyone who has spent any amount of time perusing the Netflix library knows that it is not, shall we say, made up of exclusively award-winning offerings.  One might go so far as to say that some of the titles would still go unwatched even if they were the last remaining films on Earth.

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Surprising Retirement Plans of Georgetown Faculty

      Have you ever wondered what professors and deans would like to do upon retirement? I interviewed Professor Jane Aiken, Director of the Community Justice Project, Andrew Cornblatt, Dean of Admissions at the Law Center, and Professor David Cole to find out.

      As I prepared to interview Jane Aiken on what her future retirement plans were, I thought she would tell me any one of the standard answers—write a book, travel the globe, speak at different schools or work for the government. I never expected her answer.  She told me that it had always been her life long dream to be a farmer in Tennessee. Tennessee!! Growing up, she was exposed to family members who either were farmers or knew farmers. She grew up being aware of the growing decrease in farmers, and she wanted to contribute. However, to actually be a famer was not a line of business welcomed in her family. Her parents and older siblings had all completed graduate school, and she was expected to do the same. So according to her, “since I had a second passion for the law, I went to law school and obtained my JD. But because of debt, I had to start practicing law.”

But when I asked her why she didn’t drop out after she paid her debt, she laughed and said, “As I gained more fame as a lawyer, it was difficult to just throw in the towel and start digging the earth. I was forced to keep going. I don’t know why, but I felt that I had to keep going.”

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