Student Spotlight: David Raimer '08
You know what they say about first impressions; you never get a second chance to make one. Fortunately, I didn’t let my first impression of Law Review dissuade me from giving it a try. You see, students who are interested in joining one of our four law journals here at Notre Dame are encouraged to attend an editing review session toward the end of their first year. Several minutes into the session, the individual running the meeting mentioned that she could tell whether a period was italicized or not just by looking at it. I was shocked. Somewhere around the distinction between hyphens (-), en-dashes (–), and em-dashes (—), my eyes glazed over. Nonetheless, I found myself spending a good portion of my second and third years of law school making exactly those distinctions.
Our work on Law Review does involve a substantial amount of editing. Like it or not, we learn to be assiduously attentive to detail. More significantly, membership also provides a special opportunity to engage in ongoing debate and dialogue over subjects vital to the development of legal and social thought. This is especially so because law is the only discipline where students are responsible for editing and publishing the scholarly journals of the profession. In some cases, our participation is hands-on. For example, last semester we were privileged to host a symposium featuring United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and some of the foremost legal thinkers in the country.
While the skills and opportunities gained on Law Review are invaluable, my decision to seek a leadership role was grounded in my firm belief in the mission of this University. For many in the academic community, our publication is the face of Notre Dame Law School. In a very real sense, as members of the Law Review, we are ambassadors for this institution. As such, we strive to ensure that others in the academic community are aware of the caliber of our school. But the mission of this Law Review is more than simply putting out high quality legal work. This is not just any law review; this is the Notre Dame Law Review. Accordingly, it can and should reflect the distinctive character of this institution. That does not mean that we sacrifice our academic standards or refuse to publish legal arguments with which we happen to disagree. Rather, we endeavor to define ourselves by what we include, not by what we exclude. We seek to be known as a publication committed to excellence in legal scholarship, yet willing to give voice to perspectives that might not otherwise find a place in legal discourse.
Yes, I can now indeed tell the difference between “.” and “.”: but membership on the Notre Dame Law Review means so much more than that.
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