Journal Credit Coalition Hosts Town Hall
Last Thursday, the journal credit coalition, led by Kasey Michaud ’26, hosted a town hall for students to learn more about the proposal and discuss their opinions. The event was well attended and the organization reported that students shared useful feedback and concerns. The coalition is currently working on finalizing their proposal.
The road ahead is still lengthy for the coalition. After completing the proposal, the coalition will share it with all journals and they will choose whether or not to sign on. Following this, the coalition will send the proposal to the curriculum committee, a group of faculty members led by Professor Thomas Nachbar. That committee will then share a recommendation with Dean Leslie Kendrick ’06. Dean Kendrick will then make a final decision, following a poll of all faculty members.
Interestingly, Mr. Michaud’s ideas are not new. A similar proposal was raised in 2022 but ultimately failed. The coalition has published a folder on UVA Box which contains documents from this earlier attempt. At the time, faculty polled members of various journals and fifty percent were against the idea of credit for journals.[1] Mr. Michaud attributes this to misconceptions and has actively sought to educate the student body to prevent similar misunderstandings. However, the Law School student body has not had an opportunity to vote this time around, and there is no plan for them to have such a voice.
The coalition recently received new comments from Vice Dean Michael Gilbert, where there remain two significant outstanding concerns: (1) the level of faculty oversight, and (2) competing extracurriculars. Mr. Michaud acknowledged that faculty oversight is crucial, especially because of the difficulties in validating how many hours students spend on different journal projects.
The concern of competing extracurriculars stems from a fear that providing credit to journal editors would disincentive students from participating in other activities such as pro-bono work and moot court. Mr. Michaud said he is not afraid to “open the floodgates” and offer credit for a vast array of activities, but he is currently focused on journals because they “impact[] the most amount of students.” Jakob Zahalnksy ’26 agrees that credit opportunities should be expanded and noted “pro-bono should absolutely get credit. You’re doing real legal work and it’s contributing to your legal education.”
While starting with journals and leaving open the possibility to expand credit opportunities is an enticing idea, this relies on the premise that students’ time is a positive-sum game. The coalition is assuming that their proposal will benefit journal members at no cost to other programs. However, some worry this is misguided. If credit is offered to journal editors, it puts an outsized emphasis on journals, and students will be more inclined to choose to participate in journals at the expense of other extracurricular activities. This unintended consequence is a serious concern which the coalition is working to address, but they currently have no solution in place.
The next hurdle for the coalition will be to garner support from each of the individual journals. While there is no set number of journals required to sign on to the proposal, the more that do will increase its chances of success. Mr. Michaud remarked that his conversations with the leadership of various journals has been positive. He is of the opinion that the decision to sign on should be left up to the editors-in-chief and the managerial editors, as opposed to a democratic process within journals. However, it is up to each journal how they choose to handle this decision.
Moving forward, the coalition is hopeful the proposal will be successful. Mr. Michaud discussed how the law school environment is much different now than it was in 2022. The American Bar Association (“ABA”) passed a resolution in August 2023 recommending that law schools offer credit for journal participation if they do not do so already. The ABA resolution recommends one credit for every 42.5 hours spent working on a journal. However, faculty are concerned with providing adequate oversight in order to comply with ABA requirements. While many other schools now offer credit for journal participation, it is not clear whether they have the proper guardrails in place. This makes it difficult to create proper procedures of our own.
The journal credit coalition has engaged in a significant endeavor to educate the student body and prepare the credit policy. Due to the current timeline, school administration will likely decide on the proposal before the student body as a whole has an opportunity to weigh in. Nonetheless, the coalition is addressing concerns as they arise, and they will be eagerly awaiting a final decision from faculty once they submit the finalized proposal.
[1] Ad Hoc Faculty Committee Memo Rejecting Journal Credit (2022).
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Ryan Keane — rmk6rf@virginia.edu