Juris — previously Duke’s law magazine for undergraduate students — has transitioned to the Duke Undergraduate Law Review, allowing pre-law students from across the nation to display legal publications through an online and print journal.
DULR is “committed to promoting ingenious legal scholarship from undergraduates that substantively impacts the legal landscape” and “aim[s] to foster legal discourse through innovative research, covering an expansive range of topics,” according to its website.
“The sorts of submissions that we’re looking for are [those] that explore topics that are novel, that provide recommendations [and] that are more argumentative in nature,” said junior Zander Pitrus, co-editor-in-chief.
According to Pitrus, DULR will focus on a shift from summaries of Supreme Court cases to a “more comprehensive and incisive” set of publications. He believes the transition will allow undergraduates to make their voices heard in a way that is “original and innovative.”
“I strongly believe undergraduates can contribute to legal scholarship in the legal realm, and the only way they can do that is really by producing pieces or submitting online journals,” he said. “Being able to have that at a top-ten institution will give undergraduates the opportunity to impact the legal landscape.”
In addition to creating a new website, DULR is also expanding its editorial team and membership to grow the publication’s capacity.
Juris operated with a nine-person editorial team and several staff writers, but several new positions have been added to manage online and print responsibilities for the reimagined review. Pitrus noted that DULR currently has around 30 members, but that the organization has seen significant interest from new students and that he aims to grow the staff to around 80 members.
Part of the organization’s expansion includes incorporating and receiving submissions from institutions besides Duke. Pitrus said that DULR has reached out to “300[-plus] departments around the nation” and has already received over 30 submissions from students at Harvard University, the University of Chicago and the University of California, Los Angeles, among other institutions.
To create community within the organization, Pitrus identified team bonding and collaborative work between members as a principal goal of DULR, which he hopes will foster a productive working environment.
While the pre-professional scene on campus features many business- and medicine-oriented organizations, some students have noted a lack of organizations targeted at pre-law students.
“I feel like the [pre-law] community is pretty scattered,” said sophomore Emily Kantner, a pre-law student.
She believes a stronger pre-law community at Duke could “bring some more people together” and provide beneficial professional development services, such as guidance on the application process to law school, LSAT preparation and networking opportunities.
“For students that are interested in, let’s say, law school or just legal research or legal writing generally, being able to engage in such an organization that’s now scholarship-oriented provides that growth that [students] could [benefit from] during their undergraduate career,” Pitrus said.
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