The ABA’s House of Delegates this week approved a resolution urging law schools to give either academic credit or monetary compensation to their students who serve as editors of law reviews or other academic journals. This is right in line with the logic that has college football and basketball plantations paying their student athletes, who already are getting scholarships and often diplomas they couldn’t justify based on their academic skills. Paying or otherwise compensating students who serve as law journal editors is just as reasonable, which is to say that it isn’t reasonable at all. In fact, the proposed practice, which some law schools already embrace, is unethical.
Reuters, in its news article about the ABA’s most recent intrusion into matters they ought to steer clear of, inadvertently explains why this concept is wrong-headed. It notes that these positions are “sought-after credentials that can bolster a law student’s job prospects.” Exactly, which means that students would gladly pay the law schools to get them. Being appointed as a law journal editor is its own reward: why should the recipients be paid for it too? Indeed, if the ABA’s reasoning applies, why only the editors? The other members of the law journals staffs are also providing valuable services to the school, its alumni, and the legal profession. They should be paid as well, or, to put it another way, none of the law journal staff should be paid, including the editors, just as student athletes shouldn’t be paid.
As I already stated, the positions are honors that enhance their credentials in the legal job market. Moreover, such stipends mean that the rest of the student body is paying for these added benefits for other students through their tuition. The practice turns what is supposed to be an extracurricular activity into a job. I founded and ran a law school theater organization during my three years at Georgetown Law Center. I was repeatedly told by the school’s leadership, sometimes officially, that I was making an important contribution to the school’s reputation, community and campus life by doing so. But I never was offered money for my work producing and directing the shows, which required at least as much time as serving on a law journal staff (or playing on a school sports team). It also adversely affected my grades and took up time I could have used for a part-time job, but I would have regarded payment by the school as absurd, not to mention potentially an interference with my independent judgement. Other classmates helped turn out a weekly law school newspaper, or served on the student government. Many (including me) participated in law school clinical programs, in which we provided legal services to the indigent or the D.C. government. Would those activities be as worthy of school compensation as the law journals?
The ABA, in its resolution, made clear what the real agenda is here, stating, “If implemented [the resolution] will allow a greater number of law students from lower-income or diverse backgrounds to serve as law journal editors and reap the benefits thereof.” The ABA adds that students who need to work to earn money are often shut out of law review positions because they don’t have enough time to do both. NOW I see…this is a diversity-equity-inclusion gimmick. Already, a disproportionate number of minority students are being appointed as law journal editors, and this measure will make it easier to advance this so far under-the-radar form of affirmative action.
We all have choices to make in our academic careers. My father, for example, had to go to night school because, as a veteran without living parents or any inherited funds, he needed the income from a full-time job he had to perform before attending classes. His eventual employers were impressed with the diligence, dedication and industry that choice demonstrated.
The American Bar Associations’ recommended policy is just a thinly disguised plan to assist the distribution of an important benefit according to race rather than merit.
Ethics Alarms 
Wait, don’t you either grade onto or write onto (both anonymously) a school’s primary (and usually only prestigious) law review? How can you diddle around with who gets onto the main law review at a law school? And editorial positions require particular skills. I was made articles editor of my law review because I’d taught high school English and knew how to write and edit and had impressed our editor in chief. And believe me, most articles submitted weren’t much better written than high school student work when they washed onto our desks. (The other articles editor, the smart one, reviewed and vetted submissions and decided which to accept for publication.) I’d also read a number of articles in the Harvard Law Review and learned how to mimic their editorial style.
A buddy I practiced with graded onto his main law review. When he was given an article to go through and cite check said, “Uh, you want me to do all this work? For free? No thanks.” And quit on the spot.
Wasn’t a certain ex-president awarded such a position without any evidence (or subsequent proof) that he was the best person for the job? You might have heard of then school involved.
He was allegedly voted Editor in Chief. It was an elective position at our magazine, and I assume it is at Harvard Law Review as well. But it always struck me as fishy. A buddy of mine lost the election for editor in chief and never got over it, at least not while we were still in school. Executive editor didn’t make it as far as he was concerned. But he has become the U.S. head of DLA Piper so he’s got that as a consolation prize.
My fault for using the term “awarded” without clarification that it wasn’t by the administration.
No problem, Wim. I’ve just always found it confusing that Obama was made editor in chief of HLR. I always assumed you’d have to have absolutely stellar grades to get onto the staff and that only the best grade getters would get editorial positions. But we’ve never heard anything definitive about Obama’s grades. I just can’t imagine it’s a popularity contest he won with his alleged charm or his oratory skills. Weird.
Related: https://www.thecollegefix.com/conservative-students-appear-blackballed-from-top-law-reviews/
Can you imagine the issue(s) addressed in The Students For Fair Admissions SCOTUS cases explaining Obama’s editor in chief catbird seat? What might explain his Nobel?
THAT’s easy: his Nobel is explained by the complete ideological corruption of the Peace Prize committee and process.
Thanks, ‘fraid you’re right. I turned to historynewsnetwork.org for a derisive summary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s follies. Much worse than just the Obama farce.
Jack,
I am confused. I am not a lawyer, but an engineer, so maybe things are different in our college. How is this materially different from a paid internship? When you get an internship from a company, it looks fantastic on your job hunt, and can pay anywhere between nothing and $50 an hour, depending on who you get it through. (Mine was with a big name and paid $8/ hour plus an $400/ month living stipend with an invitation to grad school, and a classmate got a little name internship and made $30/hour and a job offer after graduation). Other items that seem similar to me are undergraduate or graduate research/teaching/grading positions. These are all paid positions (that I had at some point, I’ll admit). What is different with the reviewers that makes that position not a paid one?
You pay tuition to go to a school and have access to and participate in its extracurricular activities—or not. They are not jobs. They never have been jobs. They are voluntary activities that one must qualify for by demonstrable ability, just like playing on the sports teams. If a school wants to make all participation in all extracurricular activities paid, swell: it corrupts their nature; it involves income distribution from one set of students who are not getting a benefit to those who are, but sure, go ahead. But you better pay the newspaper staff. And the clinical students. And that weird guy who spend all his time in law school teaching law students to act and sing…and those students whose talent got them cast in the show. And those who spent nights and weekends making sets and costumes.
It’s simple: the law review editor jobs aren’t treated like paid internships because they aren’t paid internships.
So this is supposed to be more like a school sport than a TA position? I was unaware that any extracurricular activities existed at colleges outside of the football and basketball teams and sororities/fraternities. I was always just focused on homework, friends, my job as either a TA, grader, or research assistant, and of course, my homework.
“I was unaware that any extracurricular activities existed at colleges outside of the football and basketball teams and sororities/fraternities.”
Orchestras, debate teams, math competitions, drama, news papers and other student publications; campus political organizations, activist groups, student social activism groups….
In all honesty, while I knew my college had a band, choir, and drama department, they also had corresponding majors and I assumed you couldn’t learn those skills without having an outlet. I truly could not tell you if UW had any of those other options when I was there. At 18 hours of coursework, an expected 72 hours of homework on the typical 4:1 scheme, and 20 hours part time job as TA/grader/research assistant, sleep, food, and whatever time I could find with my friends became as much as I could handle.
I was unaware of such offerings from my university, nor did my major permit time to spend on them. As a graduate student, I had very little more time, with only 12 hours coursework, 48 hours homework, and 40 hours for my job as a research assistant, plus another 10 hours a week as a TA/grader for junior and senior level labs.
I say this, not to doubt you, but to explain why I had no idea that being part of a journal wouldn’t be part of your classes or a job. I always assumed that people with real degrees (like law or pharmacy) had no time to spend outside of class and paying bills and only the Liberal Arts/Fine Arts folks had the time to spend on stuff that wasn’t required for basic life. The closest I had seen was people taking a music or theatre class for fun, but that is, of course, after you fulfill all your Fine Arts requirements and probably on your fifth year.
Fascinating. When I was a Harvard undergrad, the school had no journalism major or classes, and had no theater major either. The theory then was that those pursuits were best learned as a supplement to academic studies, and if they were your passion, you better learn how to engage in them while making a living doing something else. Thus, for example, the Hasty Pudding show, which required the case to do a national tour during the academic year, carried no credit, and certainly no financials compensation. Yet it was one of Harvard’s most visible and storied activities; ditto the Harvard Lampoon.
I would actually buy into that theory. I believe that having degrees in Fine Arts (outside of things like Art or music teachers) should be drastically limited as too many people major in those disciplines and then can’t pay back their college loans and…well we know the rest.
Harvard’s approach here, at least at the price people pay for a Harvard degree, seems completely sane. I guess my school, at what was $2100 a semester, it wasn’t as serious, but we were still flooded with people who had unserious degrees and racked up too much debt.
Sarah B
At my school, it was a requirement to graduate.
You either did law review on one of several journals, or you did Moot Court. Good grades made you eligible for law review. You could turn it down, but then you did Moot Court.
Law Review was more work, and more prestigious.
-Jut
Wow. That’s fascinating. Never heard of that before. Good idea!
Follow up on the Justice Thomas blog/story:
Again, I don’t see how this is a scandal or an issue. Unless the people paying his vacations have cases before SCOTUS or would be affected directly by its decisions, I see no problem with what Thomas did. Unless you show me that no other justices are doing something similar, I don’t care. I don’t hear anyone talking about how the “Wise Latina” became millionaire from book deals and speaking engagements paid for, I’m 100% certain, by individuals and entities paying for, if not directly involved, cases involving “progressive” causes before the court.
You want to comment on unethical and blatantly partisan judges, you have this:
https://www.declassified.live/p/the-sloppy-dirty-secret-grab-of-trumps
What? Judges are forbidden from accepting lavish gifts from any interests whether they currently are parties in matter before the Court or not. Any lower court judge that did as Thomas has done would be sanctioned without question. As a SCOTUS justice, he is obligated to exhibit the best of professional ethics, not what he can get away with. Furthermore, the current law regarding all Federal judges required him to report much if not all of those gifts.
I’m going to pretend you didn’t write that,
The ABA’s nonsensical, feel-good resolution is not based on any evidence that “students from lower-income or diverse backgrounds” have actually been deprived of opportunities to work on law reviews or that they will be deprived of such opportunities unless they are paid. But that doesn’t matter as long as the resolution punches the right DEI buttons.