The Upper Level Writing Paper and Law Review: How to Tell Your Story

This article begins with a query: why do law students and law professors write articles? The answer is ABA Standard 303 (a) (2) for students and self-expression and tenure for professors. It examines some of the complaints from the practicing bar regarding law students’ writings and legal education’s response to these complaints, including the addition of a faculty supervised upper-level writing requirement for students. It then explores and examines the similarities and differences between a law student drafting an upper-level writing paper and a law professor drafting a law review article. It addresses the fundamentals of scholarly writing for both students and professors, examining the mirroring of tasks required to produce a written article. The exploration of tasks includes a review of thesis statements, roadmaps, preemption checking, researching, organizing, outlining, analyzing, editing, and rewriting which must be done by both students and professors. While the technical tasks are similar, expectations differ. ABA Standard 303 (a) (2) requires faculty supervision of a student’s upper-level writing paper. It examines the appropriate expectations of both the student and the faculty member regarding this supervision. It then examines the expectations of institutions and student law review editors regarding faculty law review articles, and the available tools which help a faculty member publish his or her article. While the expectations differ, the mechanics are indeed similar, and a uniform drafting checklist is created for both faculty members and students to use when drafting their articles