Toward the end of your 1L year, one of the most important opportunities of your academic career will be right in front of you: trying out for your law school’s law review. You have spent months mastering case briefs and conquering finals. Now, you face a new challenge that can fundamentally shape your legal career.
Making law review (sometimes called a law journal) is one of the most prestigious extracurricular achievements you can attain. Employers notice it. Many top-tier firms expect it. Beyond the immediate resume boost, law review builds the legal writing, research, and citation skills that define successful attorneys.
So, how do you get to join law review and is the effort actually worth your time?
Here, we share what you need to know about the write-on competition, how to secure your spot, and why the law review process can pay dividends long after graduation.
What Is Law Review?
Law review is a highly selective, incredibly competitive, student-run publication that features scholarly articles written by legal professionals, professors, and judges. Shorter pieces, often called “notes” or “comments,” written by law students are also published in many of these journals.
Most law schools have a primary flagship journal and various other themed journals, such as a publication specifically dedicated to Criminal Law or Environmental Law. Securing a spot on the roster matters for several reasons:
- Prestige and credibility: Law review membership instantly signals academic excellence and a strong work ethic.
- Employer expectations: Many large firms and prestigious employers strongly prefer or strictly require job candidates to participate on a journal.
- Skill development: It gives you the chance to write a quality piece of legal content, ruthlessly edit articles, and get practical experience with The Bluebook.
- Career doors: Being able to put law review on your resume—or getting your own student note published—makes you a significantly more attractive job applicant, especially for judicial clerkships and appellate work.
For many students, law review is a career differentiator. It proves you have the discipline to handle rigorous, detail-oriented legal work.
Note: West Academic from BARBRI offers interactive legal citation assessments keyed to the latest editions of The Bluebook. Find these legal aids on the West Academic website.
How to Make Law Review
Most law schools use a write-on competition at the very end of 1L year. This competition typically lasts one to two weeks, beginning almost immediately after your final exams conclude.
While specific formats vary by institution, the write-on competition generally includes:
- A legal writing assignment: You will typically write a case note or comment based on a closed universe of provided materials.
- A citation exercise: You will be tasked with correcting heavily flawed citations using The Bluebook.
- Personal statements: Some schools require or offer an optional personal statement to assess your background and interest.
Additionally, some schools factor in your 1L grades, using either a strict GPA-based eligibility cutoff or a hybrid model that combines your grades with your write-on performance. Ultimately, this is a competitive process designed to identify the absolute strongest legal writers and editors in your class.
3 Tips for Success in the Law Review Write-On Competition
Here are three proven strategies to help you dominate the write-on competition.
1. Start Early + Pace Yourself
Most competitions give you a limited assignment window. The strongest submissions always come from students who start immediately, break the project into manageable stages, and allow ample time for revision and proofreading.
Waiting until the last minute inevitably leads to rushed analysis, careless errors, and weak citations. Those are the flaws law review editors are trained to catch. Treat the timeline as shorter than it actually is and give yourself the necessary room to think, write, and refine.
2. Treat It Like a Final Exam (Because It Essentially Is)
You just finished finals. You are likely exhausted. But for this competition, you must stay in that intense academic mindset.
Approach the write-on competition with the same intensity you brought to your exam preparation, outlining, and issue-spotting. That means eliminating distractions completely and blocking out focused work time. You will likely want to revise your work multiple times before you hit submit.
Law review boards are actively looking for students who demonstrate discipline and precision under intense pressure. Show them you can deliver.
3. Master Your Citations
If there is one area that consistently separates successful law review candidates from the rest of the pack, it is citation accuracy. Much of your 2L law review work will involve editing citations, verifying sources, and applying Bluebook rules flawlessly.
To stand out from your peers, triple-check every single citation. Follow formatting rules as prescribed and be consistent. Small formatting errors signal carelessness to the grading board. Strong citations demonstrate the precise attention to detail that is essential in legal practice.
Is Law Review Worth It?
The honest answer depends entirely on your professional goals. However, for the vast majority of law students, the answer is a resounding yes.
Law review is extremely valuable if you want to pursue judicial clerkships, work in BigLaw, or focus on litigation and appellate practice. If you need to build a resume that stands out in a fiercely crowded field, law review will significantly impact your opportunities. Large firms look for this credential because it guarantees a baseline of writing competency.
It may be slightly less critical if you are strictly focused on transactional work, already possess ironclad networking connections in your target industry, or strongly prefer to prioritize clinical work, externships, or part-time legal employment. It is highly time-intensive, and while it is powerful, it is not the only way to build a compelling legal resume.
The Real Value of Law Review: Skills That Last Beyond Law School
Even beyond the prestige of the credential itself, law review develops the critical skills that matter most in actual legal practice. You will develop precision in your legal writing. You will master advanced editing and revision techniques. You will gain a deep, functional understanding of legal authority.
But perhaps most importantly, you will build unwavering confidence in handling complex legal material. These are the same skills you need to pass the bar exam and excel in your everyday legal work.
Take the Next Step in Your Legal Journey
If you’re considering participating in the law review write-on competition, give it your absolute best effort. The write-on competition is a short, demanding period, but the potential payoff lasts a lifetime. Regardless of the final outcome, preparing for this competition will make you a markedly better writer, a sharper editor, and a much more disciplined law student.
Approach it seriously. Prepare strategically. Execute with unyielding precision. That’s what success in law school—and the legal profession—demands. By putting in the work now, you’ll reap the rewards through your preparation for the bar exam and into your legal career.
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