Student Journals: Faculty Advisors

Each law journal must have a Faculty Advisor who provides feedback, advice, consultation, and support to the journals over the course of the academic year.   It is the Journal's responsibility to approach and secure an advisor based on the journal content and faculty's background and expertise.  Lecturers, clinical faculty, ladder rank faculty are able to serve as faculty advisors

Although the Journal Administrator and Law Library can assist with most issues, some journal-specific questions may be better suited for a Faculty Advisor to address due to their better understanding from a faculty standpoint as well as intellectual coherence.  Basic functions that faculty advisors may provide include:

• Provide feedback, advice, consultation, and support to a journal over the course of the academic year.

• Provide general feedback and advice about each journal’s long-term mission and goals.

• Provide substantive advice on the scholarship published by each journal.

• If the journal has an advisory board or alumni board, the faculty advisor may participate in meetings.

• Assist the journals in their efforts to retain and expand its visibility both at Berkeley Law and among legal scholars at other law schools.

• Provide feedback on the journal’s training curriculum, basics of selecting articles and editing, discussing common issues that editors face, or any other issues related to training and membership development.  

• Provide guidance and support when journal editors face challenging issues with student members or with difficult authors. The faculty advisor could serve as an intermediary in such situations.