Law Review Votes Down Increasing Grade Import

The Harvard Law Review last night dismissed a proposal that would increase the importance of grades and downplay writing ability this year when considering cadidates for admission to the pretigious journal, the publication's president said.

But the Review provisionally approved a different proposal that might change the basis for admission as soon as next year, law review members said. However, this proposal will most likely be reviewed again next year before it would be implemented.

The Review this year will maintain its two-year-old selection process which requires all applicants to enter a writing comp, said President of the Review Adam S. Cohen '84.

"The status quo will be enforced this spring," said Cohen after last night's four-hour staff meeting, attended by 70 of the Review's 79 members.

The meeting was called in response to a proposal, made by two third-year law students, which would have amended the selection procedure of the Review. The proposal would have required the Review to choose half its members on first-year grades, and the other half on a writing. Last year, the Review abandoned this system, employing instead the current system that requires every applicant to take a writing test.

Under this scheme, only half of the members are selected entirely on the basis of the writing comp. The other half is selected with a formula of 70 percent first-year grades, 30 percent writing comp.

Before being dismissed by the Law Review, the proposal to use grades more as a means of selection prompted a petition drive that gained the signatures of 290 of the law school's 587 first-year law students. The petition objected to any changes in the Law Review's selection process that would "increase the influence of grades," because of the additional pressure it would place on first-year students.

Under the system approved provisionally for next spring, a few applicants would be accepted entirely on the basis of their first-year grades if the total number of applicants failed to meet a preset level, one Review member said. The smaller the applicant pool, the more that would be accepted by grades, the law student added.

Shallow Pool

Fear over recent declines in the numbers applying to the Review was considered a reason for the proposal's support among some review members last night. By exempting some applicants from the writing comp, some members of the review hoped to broaden the applicant pool.