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This year, the Washington Law Review’s dynamic women-led board is reimagining the journal’s role in pushing boundaries of scholarship while creating a more diverse, inclusive legal community.

Over the course of the year, the team has led multitiered efforts to overhaul its scholarship selection process, expand its social and online media presence, and engage with a vast alumni community.

“It has been a really interesting time to undergo such a big shift in law review, and that shift has made for such a meaningful and powerful year,” says Corinne Sebren, WLR editor-in-chief. “It reminds us why we’re all here and the impact we can have.”

Diversity and Inclusion

Finding ways to showcase ideas from a more diverse pool of scholars is central to the journal’s mission in 2020-21 and beyond. Sebren says while this year’s submission season has been one of the busiest, the team saw fewer submissions from women and people of color — groups that have been disproportionately impacted by the events of the past year.

To help meet this challenge, the board formed a new Diversity and Inclusion Committee, which has greatly contributed to the journal’s efforts to engage as a diversity-conscious publication.

“It has been a really interesting time to undergo such a big shift in law review, and that shift has made for such a meaningful and powerful year. It reminds us why we’re all here and the impact that we can have.”

“We saw there has been a little bit of a disconnect going on in terms of the topics we're publishing and the people whom those topics directly impact,” says Monica Romero, Diversity and Inclusion Committee chair. “We knew we needed to strategize about what our review process looks like, and for us that was all about mitigating bias.”

The board implemented a four-stage, anonymized review process for incoming submissions. Articles in the first two stages are read without knowledge of author or institution, followed by analytical review stages with a keen eye cast on implicit biases.

This unique process, Romero says, places an emphasis on ideas over credentials and writing styles, and it ideally accounts for individual circumstances facing disproportionately impacted groups.

“People have had to stay home, teach classes, homeschool their kids… and women and women of color have taken the brunt of that,” Romero says. “And so just because there are pieces that seem a little unfinished, that's not necessarily the end of the road.”

Expanding Impact

To further amplify these voices, the journal amped up its activity on social media and elevated its online presence.

The law review team also recognized the immense opportunity to engage with its expansive alumni network — a network that includes former journal staffers who bring decades of experience to current legal issues.

To this end, the WLR board formed a new Alumni Relations Committee to manage engagement efforts, including events, networking opportunities and alumni features in various WLR communications like the online team’s quarterly newsletter.

“We have such a great group of alumni who have passed through WLR but we just were not as connected with them as we feel we should be,” says Alumni Relations Committee Chair Quynh La. “There's always this sentiment that we're all going to be alumni one day, and it would be really great if there was a network for us to be a part of in the future.”

“These articles should mean something, and if they can carry an impact or help someone articulate things and have an understanding of the world that we live in, that is what we want.”

Even seemingly small developments — such as a new style guide and an inclusive language policy codified this year — go a long way toward continuing momentum the journal team has generated this year.

These are largely new approaches to issues facing the legal community in 2021, and while they may not always be perfect, they have been guided by a thoughtful, intentional approach that creates a foundation for future students.

“It's exciting to be swimming in uncharted territory and have the opportunity here to set a standard — not just for Washington Law Review, but other law reviews across the country,” Romero says.

“These articles should mean something, and if they can carry an impact or help someone articulate things and have an understanding of the world that we live in, that is what we want.”