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While at first blush it may seem obvious that do work=get paid — particularly when the product you’re working on is valuable to the institution you’re working for — anyone familiar with the law school racket knows that’s not true. Law students compete with one another for the “right” to do… what amounts to a lot of grunt work for journals. In return, they’re given zero dollars but a super valuable entry on their resume. At a handful of law schools (such as University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University), you might earn credit hours for the work, but that’s the most you can hope for.
But law students at NYU Law are hoping to change all that.
As reported by the Washington Square News, a petition with 250 signatures has been submitted to the administration asking for compensation — as in cold hard cash — for their work.
“We love our work, but prestige is not adequate compensation for the value we provide,” the letter reads. “Our journals have been cited in courts throughout the country, up to the Supreme Court. NYU reaps the benefits of robust journal publication in admissions and institutional prestige.”
Hmmm, you mean you can’t eat on that “prestigious” other activities line on your resume? Weird.
Currently at NYU, 3Ls (and only 3Ls) are eligible to receive credit hours for their work, but hourly wages are unheard of for journal work — at NYU or any other law school. But as 2L and journal editor Sean Connolly said, that’s not good enough anymore.
“There’s this expectation, not just at NYU, that you’re coming to this law school and doing a bunch of work just essentially for prestige and for grounding your future career,” Connolly said. “That’s kind of the logic we’re trying to change, this idea that all the work you’re doing in law school is stressful, uncompensated and you should just like go to law school, get a bunch of debt, do a bunch of work, and then ‘it’s fine, because you’ll get a job later.’”
Another law student, Devin McCowan, noted that this move would be particularly helpful for low-income students:
“By having the ability to choose compensation, that could allow me to feel much less stressed about going out to eat with friends on the weekends or being able to just afford basic living expenses and things,” McCowan said. “It can mean a lot for me and make me feel more comfortable being at university like this, especially when I know a lot of my richer colleagues and students don’t have to necessarily worry in the same way about their living expenses.”
At a time when lots of law schools are talking about diversity in legal academia, this is a concrete step that could go pretty far in making a material difference for those who don’t come from a privileged background.
A spokesperson for the university said NYU has plans to discus the petition with students, but provided no further details.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
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