Bricks on the Brain

UM Law

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Is UM Law Review too Exclusive? Part 2

Judge Richard Posner brings up a few points that apply to my proposal to expand the number of students on UM's Law Review. I believe that by enhancing the nationwide marketability of more UM Law graduates, more grads will be hired by elite out-of-state firms and thus help UM's reputation. Posner agrees that putting Law Review on a resume tends to open doors because it "signals the quality of particular students to prospective employers. The law review editors tend to be the elite of the student body; prospective employers know this and so the elite students tend to be sorted to the elite firms."

However, he also tends to believe in an inverse relationship between the number of students on Law Review and the quality of the publication.

Suppose we are both right: Assume we can help more UM Law grads get elite out-of-state jobs by expanding the number on LR, leading to a snowball effect of greater respect for UM Law in the national legal community. The price would be some loss of LR publication quality.

Would this loss be noticed by anyone? Would it lead to a loss of respect for UM in the national legal community? I seriously doubt it. Either nobody would notice, or the effect would be so slight as to justify the tradeoff.