Hereâs how editors are chosen for the Harvard Law Review. Fourteen editors (two from each 1L section) are selected based on a combination of their first-year grades and their competition scores. Twenty editors are selected based solely on their competition scores. The remaining editors are selected on a discretionary basis. Some of these discretionary slots may be used to implement
the Reviewâs affirmative action policy.
http://www.harvardlawreview.org/membership.shtml
According to the NYT, hereâs how BO was chosen to head the Review.
Mr. Obama was elected after a meeting of the reviewâs 80 editors that convened Sunday and lasted until early this morning, a participant said.
Until the 1970âs the editors were picked on the basis of grades, and the president of the Law Review was the student with the highest academic rank. Among these were Elliot L. Richardson, the former Attorney General, and Irwin Griswold, a dean of the Harvard Law School and Solicitor General under Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon.
That system came under attack in the 1970âs and was replaced by a program in which about half the editors are chosen for their grades and the other half are chosen by fellow students after a special writing competition.
The new system, disputed when it began, was meant to help insure that minority students became editors of The Law Review.
The first female editor of the Harvard Law Review was Susan Estrich, in 1977.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2DC1631F935A35751C0A966958260