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Membership on the Ohio State Law Journal offers students an exceptional opportunity to gain editing, research and writing skills and to publish their own scholarship. The Journal staff members edit articles written by some of the best legal scholars in the country and also participate in our student Note writing program. The Journal‘s Publication Selection Committee chooses about ten Notes for publication in the Ohio State Law Journal each year.

The Journal offers approximately half of its staff member positions to students ranked in the top 10% of the 1L class, and the other half to the top performers in the annual writing competition. The writing competition occurs shortly after the end of final exams in May and lasts ten days. The competition requires a ten-page legal analysis paper and a brief editing assignment. For the ten-page paper, the students will be provided with a writing prompt at the beginning of the competition, and the research is restricted to the list of provided sources (cases, statutes, law review articles, etc.). In recent years, participants have been asked to write about free speech in schools and the scope of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The editing assignment tests knowledge of Bluebook rules by requiring the identification of errors in text and footnotes. Because the competition occurs before final grades are posted for the 1L class, all students who are interested in Journal membership should plan to participate in the writing competition.

The writing competition is open to rising 3Ls and transfer students, although space is limited. Rising 3Ls interested in Journal membership should attend the meetings in late Spring of their 2L year, and participate in the writing competition at the same time as the rising 2Ls. The writing competition timeline for transfer students will be made available in July to those interested.