Student Membership

Students who have completed at least 30 academic credits within their first year may become eligible for membership after meeting several requirements. First, the student must be ranked in the top fifteen percent of the 1L class as determined at the end of the spring semester. Students in this category will be invited to participate in the Candidates Program. In addition, the student must satisfactorily complete the Candidates Program to be offered membership.

The Candidates Program takes place during the summer after the first year and consists of two phases. In the first phase, the candidate must achieve an acceptable score on the Bluebook examination. Upon passage of the Bluebook exam, the candidate will then complete a writing assignment, which requires the candidate to research and compose a casenote on a topic assigned by the Review’s Student Materials Editor. The candidate’s completed paper is anonymously judged by members of the Review’s editorial board. The paper’s quality, legal analysis, research, organization, and conformance with the Bluebook will be considered. The Review will extend invitations for membership to students who complete both phases of the Candidates Program.

A student transferring to Cumberland from a law school accredited by the American Bar Association is eligible to participate in the Cumberland Law Review Candidates Program, provided the student is in the top fifteen percent of his or her class after the first year at the former school. A student transferring from another law school who is a member of that school’s law review may be invited into membership in Cumberland Law Review at the discretion of the editorial board. Flex students enrolled part-time at Cumberland will become eligible after completing 26 credit hours and a top 15 percent ranking.

Members are required to participate in the activities of the Law Review. Specifically, members must attend all regularly scheduled and specially called meetings. Further, members are required to complete—in a competent and timely fashion—all tasks assigned by the Editor-in-Chief. Additionally, all Law Review members are required to write a student comment of publishable quality by a date specified by the Editorial Board, typically occurring in the spring of the second year. There are no exceptions to this policy. The procedure the student should follow is discussed in the Bylaws. Failure to comply with the requirements of membership may result in disciplinary action per the Review’s Bylaws.

Please direct all membership inquiries to Student Materials Editor Kynsley Rae Blasingame at kblasing@samford.edu or email lawrev@samford.edu.