Cornell Law Review

An admitted Associate is responsible for the editing and collecting of source materials for approximately one year’s worth of upcoming Cornell Law Review articles.  Editing is carried out in two stages, “proving” and “teching,” the first of which is primarily to verify and correct the substantive content of an article, and the second of which is to resolve issues relating to layout and remove whatever remaining substantive errors remain within. Associates are herein responsible to the Law Review’s Managing Editors, who oversee the intermediate and final editing of every article, the Articles Editors, who are responsible for selecting and editing the submissions generated by professors and practitioners, and Notes Editors, who are responsible for developing, selecting and editing the submissions generated by third-year members of the Law Review.

Source collection involves the physical process of securing books, magazines, Internet sources and other law review articles for use in the aforementioned editing processes. Collectors traverse the several libraries found around Cornell’s campus in search for hard, printed copies of these items, in a quest to insure the highest possible degree of accuracy for our finished work product. Because electronic versions of legal documents are frequently littered with errors, printed editions are strongly favored by the Law Review‘s editors. The search may bring the Associate into contact with both Editors and the Authors of the submissions.

Each admitted Associate is also required to submit a publishable Note to the Law Review by a pre-determined deadline. Standards and deadlines for submission are set by the Senior Notes Editor and the Notes Office, which consists of five additional Notes Editors. The Notes Office considers finished Notes throughout the year for potential publication in the Law Review, and advises Associates on both standards and possible topics by which new Notes may be developed for publication. Notes Editors then assist at every stage of a Note’s ongoing development, and review the Note at pre-determined points in the gestation process to determine whether an Associate is on track to meeting the Note elevation requirement. Successful completion of a Note is believed to be among the most rewarding points in a law student’s career.