Our Very Own Transition Team
It’s a cruel reality that the busiest time for the leadership of our student-run Supreme Court Bulletin Previews is the very first month of their tenure. In the weeks immediately following their appointment, the new Editor-in-Chief and Executive Editor have to recruit, vet, and select 24 new associates from the class behind them. They must choose a real case from the Court’s final docket of the term with adequate briefing already on file to support a writing competition, then they have to grade the applicants’ submissions and schedule interviews. At the same time, they must learn their jobs from the outgoing leadership before those students graduate and join the working world as new lawyers. While it’s a daunting amount of work, we’re confident the new team is equal to the challenge.
The new Editor-in-Chief of the Bulletin is Laurel Hopkins. Laurel graduated summa cum laude from Columbia College in 2014 with a degree in psychology. She is a Charles Evan Hughes Scholar at Cornell Law and has already won three awards for her writing. Equally impressive is her resume as a volunteer, which contains activities ranging from coaching high school debate to spending summers working at an orphanage in Haiti. “My favorite part of working for the Bulletin” Laurel explains, “is the opportunity to learn about Supreme Court cases while making information accessible to a broader audience. The transition process has been exciting because we get to both take a larger role in the Bulletin’s work and select new associates who are just as enthusiastic about carrying out the Bulletin’s mission.”
The new Executive Editor is Jaeeun Shin. A native of South Korea, Jaeeun received her degree in International Studies from Yonsei University in Seoul but also studied as an exchange student at the University of California, Berkeley. Jaeeun is active within Cornell Law School as a member of the Briggs Society of International Law, the Asian Pacific American Law Student Association, the Alternative Dispute Resolution Society and an associate on the Cornell International Law Journal. “I thought writing previews as an associate was fun and challenging, but being part of the editorial board has already proven to be much more so,” Jaeeun says. “It’s been a busy few weeks so far but I’m incredibly grateful for this opportunity to be involved. We’re confident that we can look forward to another year of great previews.”
Laurel and Jaeeun have already selected a number of their classmates to serve as Managing Editors. These MEs will work with pairs of new Associates to create Previews when the Supreme Court begins its 2017 – 18 docket in October. Those new Associates will be selected by Laurel, Jaeeun and their team in the coming weeks. That process consists of a writing competition and then interviews with each candidate. They are looking to find students with both the skills and the desire to communicate to the public a clear, unbiased explanation of the issues and arguments for each case the Court hears. Your donations help us pay them as graduate research assistants.
Click here to access our Supreme Court Bulletin Previews, and find our students on Twitter and Facebook, too.
