Membership
The St. Johns’s Law Review selects its members with the goal of obtaining a staff of hardworking, diverse law students with strong analytic and writing skills committed to advancing the publication legacy and goals of the Law Review, The Journal of Catholic Legal Studies, and Commentary. Invitations to become a Staff Member on the Law Review are made only to students of St. John’s University School of Law who have completed the full first-year curriculum, expect to attend St. John’s for at least two more academic years, and have not applied to the Law Review in the past.
Membership Criteria
Membership on the Law Review is based on a combination of cumulative grade point average and successful completion of the St. John’s annual writing competition, conducted in the spring of the 1L year. The writing competition, conducted by the Editors of the Law Review, consists of (1) a case comment on an assigned topic and (2) an examination on rules of grammar and The Bluebook. The Law Review also accepts applications from students transferring into St. John’s, provided that they meet the eligibility requirements. Information regarding meetings, the writing competition, and applications become available in April. Each year, approximately 200 individuals apply to join the Law Review. Of these, the Law Review expects to invite 32 to 37 individuals to be Staff Members in the summer following the traditional 1L year. Those students who are selected to join the Law Review are expected to begin work as Staff Members in July. The Law Review is a year-round organization, which operates during school breaks and holidays.
Staff Member Responsibilities
Staff Member duties include involvement in the editorial process, in which articles selected for publication are researched and edited to ensure their technical and substantive integrity, as well as the completion of a scholarly student note, case comment, or recent development. A Notes and Comments Editor guides each Staff Member through the writing process to ensure that the student-written materials published by the Law Review are of the highest quality. After one year of Law Review membership, Staff Members are eligible for election to the Editorial Board. All members of the Law Review work on all three publications, but certain Editors have a particular focus on either the Law Review, The Journal of Catholic Legal Studies, or Commentary. All Law Review members are also active in other aspects of the Law School community, including working with the Office of Admissions, the Visiting Jurist Program, and the annual Constitutional Law Panel.