Petitioning to Become a Member
To: Prospective Journal Petitioners
From: The Law Journal Petition Committee
Date: April 1, 2009
Re: The Petition Process
It's time to start thinking about the petitioning process. The Law Journal Petition Committee would like to encourage everyone who is interested in becoming a journal staff member to submit a petition. To that end, we are circulating this explanation of the petition process. All journals select their staff members during the summer through a single petition process. Petitioners write one petition and submit it to as many journals as they want. The petition includes a case comment or note (80% of the petition) and a Bluebook exercise (20% of the petition). Each journal evaluates petitioners independently and extends offers based on its own criteria. We encourage you to apply to all the journals that interest you.
We will also be having an optional Q&A meeting at 12:15 on Wednesday, April 1st in Room 25. This session is the official "journal endorsed" Q&A on the petition process. Bring your questions!
The law school has five student run journals:
- Law and Inequality covers a broad range of substantive areas focusing on the nexus between law and inequality.
- Minnesota Journal of International Law (formerly the Minnesota journal of Global Trade) publishes articles on contemporary legal issues in international law, including trade, international economics, and politics.
- Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology (formerly the Minnesota Intellectual Property Review) analyzes legal issues at the intersection of technology and the law, including, but not limited to the traditional domains of intellectual property.
- The Labor Lawyer is a journal of ideas and developments in the field of labor and employment law. Its objectives are to provide practitioners, judges, administrators, and the interested public with balanced discussions of developments in all areas of labor and employment law.
- Minnesota Law Review covers the entire spectrum of legal topics as well as the intersections between law and other fields.
These brief descriptions provide only a rough idea of the types of issues each of these journals covers. We recommend that you look at past issues of each journal and talk to current members to get a better sense of what each journal does.
All journals select their staff members during the summer through a single petition process. Petitioners write one petition and submit it to as many journals as they want. Each journal evaluates petitioners independently and extends offers based on its own criteria. We encourage you to apply to all the journals that interest you.
You should note that the journals use the petition process to select staff members only. They select editors from the staff. If you become a staff member, you will be eligible for selection as an editor next spring.