Anyone have any good ideas on how to come up with a Law Review comment?
The problem I am having now is sheer overload. I got 101 things to look at to help, but I feel a little blind. Reading random blogs, et cetera. All I have been told is not to do Constitutional Law because there is a low shot at a student authored Con Law piece getting published.
What do you like? Pick a topic you really like and see if there are any circuit splits regarding that topic that you could address in a comment.
Do pick something you like though please. Your paper will come out better and you won’t hate your life while you write it. Good luck.
One option is to go round to profs in classes you enjoyed (or hated least) and ask them for topic suggestions - most will probably be happy to help. I think there’s also something on Westlaw or Lexis that IDs emerging circuit splits, so if you ask their reps, that might point you in a useful direction. However, be careful with the circuit split issue that you don’t pick something that gets cert granted on/heard before you’d get published (not that you can always predict this).
(Just try to pick something that interests you because it will make the process a little less painful.)
I sent out some correspondence to professors, waiting to hear back. I really wanted to do something internet related, but it is daunting. The authority just isn’t there to start making claims. Or, it is there, but not a lot of it.
I had one idea. Something like, internet websites that have consumer credit card information should not be allowed to shield themselves via contract when they get hacked. That is very general. It is based on the class action law suit against Sony for the PSN hacking a few years ago. I wouldn’t even know where to start on that one though…
I picked mine by searching all federal circuits Westlaw with matter /3 first /3 impression, and then sorting by date. Gave me all the stuff that courts hadn’t looked at before, and I found some interesting things to write about.
It is definitely a good method. The problem I ran into is that anything more than six (6) months old was already published. It seems that circuit splits/first impressions are such an automatic go-to that many people automatically begin writing something on the topic.