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LAW JOURNAL MANAGEMENT – CRLJ
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY CIVIL RIGHTS LAW JOURNAL
SPRING 2024
PROFESSOR STEPHANIE GROFF (she/her)
SYLLABUS
Scholarly publication in the legal profession is unique. With few exceptions law student
editors—not professors, scholars, or other paid professionals—select and edit the articles that
appear on the influential pages of law journals. Student editors gain invaluable editing and
management skills over the course of their tenure. However, all too often, their institutional
knowledge is lost when they graduate.
Law Journal Management is designed to facilitate the transfer of knowledge between
outgoing and incoming editors and to improve the management of ASLS journals as a whole.
The course covers, inter alia, article selection and editing, production process, membership
selection, and the role of student-run law journals in legal scholarship. In addition, this course
seeks to help establish your new editorial board’s momentum and knowledge of this process, in
addition to increasing the dialogue among the journals with the goal of improving journal
management at ASLS.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of this course, incoming editors will:
• Begin to build a team relationship with fellow editors;
• Consider the role of student-run law journals in legal scholarship;
• Hear and learn from outgoing editors’ experiences;
• Discuss lessons learned, hints, tips, and tricks with outgoing editors;
• Gain an overall view of law journal management and identify things to think about for
each function, including selecting and editing articles, publishing the journal, and
selecting journal membership;
• Obtain specific knowledge applicable to their editor position;
• Brainstorm goals for the coming year and adapting to a hybrid world of in person and
virtual; and
• Participate in a dialogue with representatives from other journals.
TEXT/RESOURCES
Students are required to read the CRLJ Constitution and Handbook prior to the first class
meeting.
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COURSE GRADING AND REQUIREMENTS
Law Journal Management will be graded on a pass-fail basis. Those passing the course
will receive one academic credit. To receive a passing grade, students must:
• Attend all class meetings (attendance will be recorded) as required by Academic
Regulation 4-1.
o This means that you must attend a minimum of 11 hours of instruction.
o Please note that there will be a total of 15 hours of instruction this semester,
including required meetings. It is strongly recommended that you attend all class
meetings.
o If you cannot attend a class, email the professor, the outgoing editor-in-chief
(EIC), the outgoing executive editor (EE), the incoming EIC, and the incoming
EE prior to the beginning of class and we will work with you to make up that
class.
• Scheduling of the class will be finalized once editor selections are made. As a result, the
majority of the classes will likely take place on weekends when everyone is available. It
is imperative that you evaluate your schedule and attend the classes.
• Participate in class discussion. This course will be in person this semester.
• Attend individual meetings as described by this syllabus.
• Academic Regulation 4-1 requires each student to be responsible for maintaining a record
of their attendance in each class, which would include a record of these individual
meetings.
o A summary of these individual meetings, including the date and time, will be sent
to the professor within 48 hours of the meeting copying the editor with which you
met and your newly selected EIC and EE.
• Meet deadlines and other editorial requirements set forth by the journal.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Professor’s Contact Information: Email – [email protected]
QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the class or topics discussed during the
semester, students can reach out to Professors Groff at any time. Students are also encouraged to
reach out to Annamaria Nields, Associate Dean for Administration and Student Affairs,
In addition, the University has many offices students can contact as well. For more information
about these offices, click on the links below.
• Compliance Diversity and Ethics
• Bias Incident Report
• Title IX
• Student Support and Advocacy Center
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CLASS SCHEDULE
Class 1: (2 Hours)
Introduction and Overview
• Introductions of Adjunct and Students
• Outline and purpose of the course
• The role of a student-run law journal and the editorial board
• A history of the journal
• The planned transition between editorial board
CRLJ Constitution Review
• Mission and purpose of CRLJ
• Composition and responsibilities of the Board of Editors
• General membership qualification and duties
• Disciplinary action, including sanction system
• Meeting requirements and procedures
• Procedure for amending the Constitution
Required
Meeting #1: Individual Meeting One (2 hours)
Incoming editors should schedule at least two hours of meetings with outgoing
editors. A summary of these individual meetings, including the date and time,
will be sent to the professor within 48 hours of the meeting copying the editor
with which you met and your EIC and EE. Please plan to discuss the following,
as well as the lessons that the outgoing editors learned during their term:
EIC: The publication timetable from article selection to distribution and the role
of each editor, full member, and candidate member; symposium and speaker
events; budget; website; and outreach.
EE: The publication timetable, journal polices participation and discipline, and
the role of each editor, full member, and candidate member.
Articles: Article solicitation and selection, editing responsibilities, meeting the
publication timeline, dealing with the publisher, author requests, and making the
final edits.
Notes: Mentoring and guiding candidate members, the write-on process and
working with the candidate members to produce quality articles.
Research: Editing responsibilities, article reconciliation, working with candidate
members, and meeting the publication timeline.
Managing: Balancing the budget, making SBA requests, obtaining
reimbursements, collecting and depositing payments, best practices for working
with alumni and customers, and publication documentation management.
Symposium: Discuss the next symposium or speaker event topic, and stages in
planning and executing the events.
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Class 2: (2 hours)
Research and Spading
• Source gathering
• Training candidate members
• Spading process, including dividing up spading assignments
• Style Guide/Bluebook
• Article reconciliation
• Meeting publication deadlines
Budget, Subscriptions, and Managing a “Business”
• Formulating Budget Requests to the SBA
• Presenting Budget Requests to the SBA
• Treasurer responsibilities
• Subscription fulfillment
• Customer and alumni relations
• Managing the website and TWEN
Class 3: (2 Hours)
Symposium/Speaker Events
• Selecting a topic and location
• Finding Speakers
• Logistics (food, audio/visual, materials)
• Ideas for improvements
Selecting Members/Managing Candidate Members/Student Casenotes
• Write-on process and membership selection
• Orientation
• Giving feedback
• Role of notes editors and student mentors
• Getting CMs involved
• Keeping Records
• Student casenote and comment selection process
• Publishing casenote/comments
Class 4: (2 hours)
Articles Selection and Process
• Article Selection, including preemption checks and rating
• Copyright/Licensing agreements
• Record retention
• Faculty relations
• Ideas for expanding published materials
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Editing Articles
• Publication schedule
• Editing Professional Pieces
• Coordinating the Editing Process
• Relationships with Authors
• Roles of/interaction with EE or EIC
• Usage and consistency issues
• Editing student pieces
Required
Meeting #2:
Individual Meeting Two (1 hour)
• Incoming editors should schedule a one-hour meeting with outgoing
editors to transfer any relevant documents, review editorial
responsibilities, and discuss the transition.
• This should be a wrap up meeting where the incoming editor asks all last-
minute questions of the out-going editor.
• A summary of these individual meetings, including the date and time, will
be sent to the professor within 48 hours of the meeting copying the editor
with which you met and your EIC.
Class 5: (2 hours)
Editor-in-chief & Executive Editor
• How to properly transition
• Working with other journals
• How to advocate for CRLJ
• Interacting with the publisher and authors
• Management of the team
Outreach and Planning
• Faculty Advisors
• Campus presence
• Outreach to Alumni, Academic organizations, the Hill, and the federal
government
• Administrative matters
• Communications with journal members
• Short and long-term planning
Editor Workshop + Class Wrap Up
• Mock Board Meeting
• Reviewing goals
• What happens now?
• Evaluations
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Class 6: All-Journal Joint Roundtable Discussions, Date and Time TBD
• Network with editors from each of the GMUSL journals to share ideas
about building journal morale, succession planning, and leading a journal.
