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Ellie: In this episode of Law Talks, I'm joined by Saloni Sanwalka, the current editor of the Oxford University Undergraduate Law Journal. Saloni is a second year law student at Oxford and applied to join the editorial team in her first year. Saloni discusses the aim of the journal, its publication requirements, and any advice for any law student aspiring to be published.
Thank you so much for joining us on Law Talks and to start off, please could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your life as a law student?
Saloni: Yeah, of course. It's super exciting to be here. So my name is Saloni. I'm a second year law student at Harris Manchester College in Oxford.
And for those of you who don't know, HMC is a super special college because it's Oxford's 21 plus college. And there's a lot of interesting course mates that you get to meet as a result of that. So, yeah, it's super exciting. Some people come here having done military service or a previous degree. For example, this is my second undergraduate degree.
And before coming to Oxford, I was at Stanford, where I did a degree in political [00:01:00] science with minor qualifications in psychology and creative writing as well. So HMC is, there's always interesting things happening and interesting people you get to meet. But the typical life of a law student is probably a mix of reading and writing and spending the rest of your time kind of confused about what the rule of law actually means.
No, but really it's definitely a lot of work. And. At the same time, extremely rewarding and, you know, coming from the U. S. system, and I'm originally from India, so having that kind of interdisciplinary perspective on English law has been super rewarding for me personally, because unlike other disciplines, it seems like English law is always on the move, because it doesn't have a constitution, and there's a lot of exciting new judgments that you're always in touch with as a law student.
So, yeah, that's about my daily life.
Ellie: Thanks so much. That's a really interesting perspective. And I'm also at Harris Manchester and I agree it's [00:02:00] a, it's a really interesting college.
Now focusing on the Oxford University Undergraduate Law Journal that you're here to talk about today. Could you tell us how you first got involved with the journal?
Saloni: Yeah, absolutely. So in my first year, I actually attended the journal's publication night event. And this is a super high profile event that happens towards the end of Trinity term. So that's around June and last year. The event was attended by two of this country's most venerated Supreme Court judges.
We had Lord Neuberger and Lord Hoffman attend, and there was a discussion between the two of them. And so I learned about the event through, you know, law blasts that were coming through the law faculty, and it was, it was all over. And I just thought, this is an amazing opportunity to learn from these two judges, but also see what the journal's about.
So just a bit more background before. Coming to Oxford, I had experience with editing other kinds of journals. So at Stanford, I've been involved with a fashion [00:03:00] journal, the Daily Campus News Journal. I've been involved in fiction editing. So I was anyway, kind of predisposed or interested in exploring what that meant in a legal context.
So I think those two things, my interest, and then this opportunity that arose in terms of publication night, I think those two things combined led me to learn a bit more about it with people that I spoke to at the event and just get a sense of what the journal was about. And very usefully at the publication event, the team at the time announced that they would be opening up for applications soon.
So just like any other student, I looked up their application process on Facebook or all their other social media and just applied.
Ellie: Thank you. I think the publication evening sounds really, really interesting and such a great opportunity to network and what is the purpose of the journal? So for our listeners who, most of our listeners are [00:04:00] aspiring lawyers, some of them are still at school, some at university, but for our listeners who haven't heard of the Oxford Undergraduate Journal, could you tell us a little bit more about the publication requirements?
Saloni: For sure. So the Oxford University Undergraduate Law Journal, or the OUULJ as we call it, is the UK's, I would say, premier law journal that is dedicated solely towards spotlighting and promoting undergraduate writing within the law. And it's the oldest in the country. So it was founded in 2009 by a team of Oxford students, which actually marks this year as our 15th year in operation.
And the journal is backed by the Oxford law faculty. And over the years, it's had the support of some of the country's top firms and chambers as sponsors, but also, you know, The country's leading academics and practitioners who form a part of our honorary board. And I think the purpose of the journal is pretty simple.
We want to be the leading voice within the UK for [00:05:00] undergraduates studying law or undergraduates interested in the law to explore topics that they're interested in. Beyond that degree and beyond the professional humdum that usually takes center stage when it comes to law related extracurriculars. So if you see what law students at uni do, it's usually some kind of law society or the bar society or other things geared towards a professional degree.
professional outcome. But I think the law journal is trying to carve out a space for students to engage their academically intellectual side or their academic curiosity and really have that be something that they can participate in as well. I think that about sums up the purpose of the journal, but in terms of our publication requirements, so the journal.
Has a bunch of arms within it. So we have our flagship publication, which is an annually published journal that consists of 6 to 8 articles across private and public [00:06:00] law, and these are completely student written and completely student edited. And. What's interesting about the flagship publication is that submissions can be made by Oxford and non Oxford students, so it's open to even international authors who may not study in the UK but are interested in this jurisdiction.
And the pieces are typically between 3, 000 to 6, 000 words, and the only substantive requirement is that they must cover some topic that has relevance to the Oxford FHS syllabus, but you don't have to be an Oxford student to publish to the journal. Beyond that, we have other opportunities to get involved and write.
So we have our blog that is a much more shorter form, a lot more current publication, and that's published on the Oxford Law Faculty blog. And here, unfortunately, this is restricted only to Oxford students, but it's not to Just undergraduates, so undergraduates and post [00:07:00] graduates within the Oxford community can contribute to the blog.
And in the past, we've had pieces ranging from, you know, a case comment on a recent case that's been heard in the Supreme Court, or even the Court of Appeal, or just an opinion piece on a new legal development or some new legislation that has been launched. And then we also have our essay competition, which we run.
This is, again, an annual essay competition, and it's aimed more towards young people. For students, first years or people who may not feel confident in submitting a full length piece, but just want to get involved in academic writing. And so we usually, this happens in Trinity term again, which is sometime late May or June, and we'll put out our essay prompt and we'll have students participate at somewhere around 1000 words.
So your average tutorial length, or even, even shorter.
Ellie: Thank you. I think that shows the wide breadth that the journal offers for people to get involved with and I imagine a lot of law students and aspiring [00:08:00] lawyers would be really interested in learning more. And I'll put the Links to the journal website in the episode description for the listeners, who'd like to find out more.
And you talked about how after learning more about the journal and attending the publication event, you decided to apply. So could you tell us about what your role is in connection to the journal and what do the different roles in the journal entail?
Saloni: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm the general editor of the journal, which means that my role is primarily managerial and making high level decisions.
So I work directly with the editor in chief who was last year's general editor, so the position works kind of as a incumbent honorary position that gets given to the outgoing general editor. So that ensures some kind of continuity and ensures that the journal's values are being carried forward.
Across the years and aren't changing on a annual basis. So [00:09:00] I guess that segues into one of the primary roles that I have, which is liaising between the senior editorial team, which comprises of me, the editor in chief. Our three vice editors, our administrative director and our publicity officer, and then the wider team.
So the wider team is about 20 editors strong and maps across associate editors, blog editors. And then we also have two podcast editors that are responsible for interviewing and editing and hosting our podcast. In addition to that, I also represent the journal to sponsors and supporters. So, for example, I'm responsible for securing sponsorships that fund our activities each year, and also for reaching out to potential judges to judge our best private and public law submissions.
So in terms of sponsorships, we reach out to chambers and firms that about like a hundred, [00:10:00] 150 of them. And we've been lucky to have a lot of repeat sponsorships over the year. So it's about forging new relationships as well as maintaining the relationships that we've had. And. a very important relationship that we must maintain is with the law faculty because obviously they're our biggest supporters and we're really lucky to be well a student run organization that is not a typical student run society because we exist within the broader apparatus of the law faculty as opposed to being just an independent organization and so I think one of my roles most rewarding Parts is being able to have a relationship with the dean of the law faculty talking about aligning our values and seeing how we can push forward the Oxford law project more broadly through this student engagement in legal academia project that the journal is pursuing.
Also responsible for linking up with our partner journals. So, for example, this year, I've been collaborating with [00:11:00] the Columbia Law Review and the LSE Law Review about how we can further our partnerships and trying to create more collaborative writing opportunities for those who are interested in submitting to the journal so that they can get exposure just beyond the local UK landscape and maybe even collaborate with legal thinkers in the United States.
For example, that's a project that we're working with the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review on. And beyond that, I'm also looking for just new opportunities for the journal to grow. So another project that we've been really excited about this year is collaborating with other podcasts out there. So Law Talks is one, but also the Allen Overy podcast and just other podcasts that exist out there to ensure that we're spotlighting legal academics.
And just doing the best we can within that landscape. So that's, I would say, the managerial and more business development side of my role. But then, of course, I'm the general editor and I also have substantive editing [00:12:00] responsibilities. So that mostly involves working with my team of vice editors to review every single submission that we get.
So for context, we get about 70 to 75. Full length article submissions each year, and then we have to call that down to six to eight that we publish that that process we call the gatekeeping process. And it's done very objectively. It's done through a blind selection process. So we don't know the identities of any of the authors and we have two editors that individually read each article and write down the independent comments.
And then we all come together and. Go through an internal rubric on which, according to which we've ranked each article. And from that, we shortlisted down to eight. So my job is to kind of lead that gatekeeping process and ensuring that we maintain impartiality throughout that whole process. And we're reviewing each and every [00:13:00] article based on its merits.
I'm also then responsible for managing the 3 month long substantive editing process with the entire team. So that includes. setting and updating our editing standards, making sure that everything is smooth, and also putting out any fires or any disagreements that arise between our authors and our editors, because obviously editing, while a very rewarding collaborative process, you can have a difference in opinion.
And that's especially comes to the front when, you know, an author, for example, might have a section of their piece that they're very, Attached to and they feel strongly should be a part of that piece, but an editor might disagree with that sentiment. So I think it's my job to liaise between those two parties and make sure that everyone's satisfied.
And then, obviously, before we publish anything, be it on the blog, the podcast or the journal, I give the articles a final review and just make sure that everything is good.
Ellie: Thank you. [00:14:00] I think that really demonstrates, like, the breadth of the role and all the different areas that uh, Journalists involved with and really interesting hearing about the hopefully like future collaborations with maybe us or even just different podcasts and things like that.
And yeah, thank you very much for including your talks in a collaboration.
So focusing now on the second half of your answer talking about the publication and that process Again, again, focusing on our listeners Why should law students try to submit to the journal and what is its value and how can it help with their legal career?
Saloni: So I think there's a number of potential benefits for anyone who's looking to submit to the journal.
So for one, I guess to answer the second part of your question about how it can help in a legal career, I think it definitely doesn't hurt to have a publication section on your CV. I think that's the number one thing that submitting to the journal brings you, is you get to wear the badge of being a published author.
So even if you submit to our blog, you get [00:15:00] published on the official Oxford Law Faculty website, and if your articles make it into our annual publication, that's a whole different ballgame. You'll have your work available for anyone to read online. They're the ones who publish our journal electronically, but then we also have a print form that's, that gets produced and that is stored with the Lord Bodleian Library and can be bought by anyone.
Otherwise, beyond just being a published author, I think what submitting to the journal brings you is you have the opportunity to have your work read by some of our esteemed judges. So this year, for example Private law submissions are going to be judged by Lord Briggs, and our public law submissions are going to be judged by Lord Sayles.
These are current Supreme Court justices, and they will be the ones who are personally reading your work and commenting on it in their forewords. There's also a monetary incentive for submitting to the journal. So if either of our judges judge your [00:16:00] submission to be the best one within its category, you stand a chance to win up to 150 and that carries over for our best submission for our essay competition as well.
But I think beyond the You know, the, these tangible benefits of, okay, you'll be a published author. You get some prize money. I think the true value in it is just the collaborative writing and editing process that you get to undergo. I think there's something so unique about writing a piece of academic literature in collaboration with someone else, it's the most pure form of just.
Intellectual exchange of ideas and going back and forth. And I think that's an opportunity that you don't get otherwise, because there's just no freedom to do that in such a safe way. I think it's a great way to explore a legal topic that you're interested in, as I mentioned, beyond a curriculum or something, you know, that you might have discussed with your professor, [00:17:00] but then exams come around or life happens and then you're, you just forget about it.
I think working on an academic piece of yourself allows you to just dive deep. Into a topic that catches your interest and actually several of several of our authors have talked about how submitting to the journal has helped them develop their legal writing skills, which come in great use, whether they're working as barristers or solicitors.
So, you know, if you're a solicitor, you constantly have to write legal articles, you know, to go on your law firm's website, or as a barrister, you might be asked to comment on something. Developing those skills through submitting to the journal are a great way to prepare you for your legal career going forward.
And I think the last benefit, at least for me, that I felt as being part of the team is you just have access to such a great network of law students. Obviously, the team is comprised of Oxford law students. So if you are someone who studies at [00:18:00] Oxford, it's a great way to go beyond your college and engage with law students from other colleges as well.
But I think if you're a contributor coming from outside of Oxford, that's an even greater opportunity there to just learn from your peers. Um, See how they approach a legal issue that can then cut across jurisdictions to where you might be studying. So it's a great way to just forge those personal relationships through editing as well.
Ellie: Thank you. I think that was a great summation of all benefits of submitting to the journal. And I completely agree. I think that having the journal, which is focused on undergrad students is such a great way of really early getting into legal academics and developing those legal writing skills, particularly, I think as law students, legal writing that we kind of have to do for our degree.
You can sometimes maybe lose the passion or the interest side of it. And at least personally, I know that's happened with me sometimes. And um, [00:19:00] being able to kind of pursue something that's your own academic interest and take it as far as like submitting it for a journal, working with different, as you were saying law students and having that academic input just sounds like a really great opportunity.
Saloni: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, as I mentioned in the past, like having a space for undergraduates is so unique. So when the journal was actually started, we were very inspired by. The tradition that's very prevalent in the us right? So this concept of having a law review, I mean, I'm sure everyone listening to this podcast has heard of the Harvard Law Review, right?
That's a semi publication out there, but that's something that's very localized to the us. But despite there being such a rich legal tradition in the uk, there isn't so much a space for it here, and there's no real explanation for why. Because you know, if you look about. If you look at some of the opportunities that publishing in the US law review have gotten for [00:20:00] students, for example, Lina Khan, she's the current head of the FTC and the, you know, In the U.
S. And she shot the fame because of an antitrust article that she wrote while she was a student at Yale. So there's a direct pipeline that gets established between submitting to a law review and being able to develop your ideas to actually get you positions in government. Right? Because. Submitting is essentially you saying, here's what I think, here's what I think about what's currently happening, and here's what I think about what should be happening.
And I think by putting your voice out there, you're attracting opportunities that you might not have even thought of before. So yeah, I think you're completely right in talking about how it opens up new avenues.
Ellie: Yeah, thank you. And I hope that from hearing this I hope that was helpful, and explore more and research the journal and how to get involved.
And I'm really excited to eventually read [00:21:00] the, the new um, publication for this year, 2024. So kind of talking about that, and we've talked a lot about how the journal functions and how someone would submit and why they should submit focusing more on actually what's in the journal.
So what topics do articles published in the journal typically cover?
Saloni: Yeah, so as I mentioned the journal is typically divided into two categories of articles. So we have articles covering private law and articles covering public law. Obviously, sometimes the boundary between these two categories can get blurred, as some topics don't neatly fit into one, but that's generally the divide that we seek to maintain.
I guess to provide Some of the topics that have been covered by articles in the past. Honestly, they range from talking about tort law to public international law to developments in contract law. One of our winning pieces last year was about [00:22:00] smart contracts. All eight of our articles that we're publishing this year are very, very promising.
We've got a couple that constitute very innovative responses, I think, to the Rwanda judgment and talking about other legal solutions that we can come up with. One of our articles this year has an extremely novel proposition on space law and how that should develop as out of space exploration. Picks up other articles that are going to be published this year range from redefining jurisdiction to kind of tackle an arms trade problem within
PIL to reconceptualising a stop all together to a discussion of the McCulloch decision and just talking about how patient autonomy should develop the medical law. So these are just some of the articles being published this year. But as you can see, there's. Quite a range and I've really loved learning about so much about the law through the articles that we've read.
So obviously not all of this can be covered [00:23:00] through a Oxford Law syllabus. So having the opportunity to just dive deeper into these pockets of law that exist outside a typical syllabus. And seeing how these articles have evolved from when they were first submitted to how they're shaping up now through three rounds of the editing process has been, has been super rewarding.
But I think this about covers the range of topics that we have.
Ellie: Thank you. I mean, that's an incredibly interesting range. And, you know, personally, I'd love to looking forward to reading the ones on the Rwanda judgment, but I also know very little about space law and all those areas. So really interesting.
And I think that's highlighted how not just submitting, but even just reading the journal, reading the articles that have um, being published on the blog can also benefit law students or even aspiring students that sit at school to kind of get an idea of different interests in the law. So thank you very much.
And we kind of always ask as a final question, [00:24:00] something focusing on kind of advice that people would give. So on this particular episode topic for law students who are listening, who would be interested in submitting to the journal, what would be your main advice?
Saloni: Yeah, so I think my main advice would, and this might sound cliche, but really just write about something that you're interested in.
I think the temptation can be to want to tap into the present moment and write about something that is buzzy or that is catching everyone's attention. But I think the best articles are those that are about a topic that the author is genuinely passionate in and interested in, because. That means that they will go above and beyond to do all the research that it takes to make sure that they're participating in the conversation and not just regurgitating an article that exists or talking about someone else's idea.
I think if it's something that you're interested in naturally you're just going to have [00:25:00] a lot more to say about it and you're going to have a much more nuanced perspective and those are the articles that end up getting picked. Another thing I would say, which is, I cannot be emphasised enough is have a structure in mind.
So don't just say, Oh, I have this great idea about how medical law should be reformed and start with that. I think it's important to know exactly where your argument is going, where it's fitting in with the general conversation and then using formatting tools, like subheadings underlines, all these things I often get overlooked, but I think they can be the difference between an article that gets selected and an article that doesn't.
Because, you know, as I mentioned, we get so many articles that as editors, if your piece is one that has a very clear structure and is one that can be understood right off the bat, it'll really set you apart. And I think the third [00:26:00] thing I would say is just Try your best, you know, I think it can be daunting, but once you start writing, I think you'll find that you have a lot more to say than you might have previously thought.
A good way to get your imagination or your intellectual curiosity going is flip through some of our past editions. Our 12th edition is published on our website, but you can go online and see some of the editions that we've had before. Look at what other students are writing about and see if you have a response that's being evoked by reading some of that.
And try and just, you know, take a piece of paper, write down five sentences that you have thought of as a response to what you've just read. And you'll be surprised by what comes out of that. So I think don't underestimate yourself and just give it a shot.
Ellie: Thank you very much. I think that's some great advice and yeah, people should follow their interests and hopefully this will [00:27:00] interest a lot of law students who are listening.
So thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Saloni: Yeah, of course. It's been a pleasure and yeah, I encourage everyone who's listening to please submit.
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