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Above The Law Seeks Additional Columnists And An Intern

If you'd like to write for or intern with Above the Law, here are the details.

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So far 2014 has been very good to Above the Law. We enjoyed record traffic over the summer, thanks to some big stories. We announced our partnership with How Appealing, Howard Bashman’s superb appellate blog. We have some great events coming up over the next few months, including our Supreme Court event in D.C. and our second annual conference in New York.

As we continue to expand, we’d like to add new voices to our pages. If you might be interested in writing for our pages or working with us as an intern, please keep reading to find out how to apply….

ABOVE THE LAW — INFORMATION FOR COLUMNIST APPLICATIONS

At the current time, ATL stories are generated by four full-time writer-editors — David Lat, Elie Mystal, Staci Zaretsky, and Joe Patrice — and our outside columnists, generally practicing lawyers in different sectors of the profession. We have a sizable roster of contributors, but we are always open to pitches for new columns. (We are not really open to one-off guest posts, since we don’t have an op-ed page here at ATL. But we’re happy to consider linking to or tweeting stories published elsewhere on the web; just send us the link.)

Why would you want to write a column for Above the Law? If you know any of our current and former columnists, ask them about the experience. We expect they’ll tell you about how enjoyable and gratifying it is to share your insights with thousands of readers; how they’ve developed new personal and professional relationships, sometimes including client relationships, through their ATL writing; and how fun it is to be a celebrity of sorts in legal circles.

(They probably won’t mention the pay, which is modest — if you care about the pay, this probably isn’t the right job for you — or our commenters, who admittedly can be a tough crowd. But remember that writers have the ability to turn off comments if they want to.)

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Here are the general columnist guidelines:

  • We are looking for columnists to write once a week, on a mutually agreed upon day of the week. We have some contributors who write for us less frequently or on a case-by-case basis, but we’ve found that columnists work best with weekly deadlines.
  • You can write under a pseudonym or your real name. We prefer that writers use their real names — it’s easier to do reporting or interview people when you’re not working behind a pseudonym — but we recognize that sometimes pseudonyms are necessary.
  • You should write about a particular subject matter or area — e.g., the in-house world, small firms, legal technology, contract attorneys — or from a particular perspective. We aren’t looking for columnists to offer their random thoughts about the legal world at large.

Speaking of beats, here are some possible columns or subject matters that we’re looking to staff. We might even add multiple columnists in a given space, depending on the number and quality of responses we receive.

1. Biglaw partnership: One of our favorite new columnists is managing partner Bruce Stachenfeld. We’re always interested in more writers like Bruce who can speak to the partnership segment of our readership. With Anonymous Partner no longer around, we’d love to have a current partner at a large law firm — think Am Law 200 or NLJ 250 — back in our pages.

2. Supreme Court: Our former SCOTUS writer, Matt Kaiser, has moved over to the white-collar beat. So we’re looking for a D.C.-based correspondent who can cover key Supreme Court arguments in person. It would be helpful for this person to be a member of the Supreme Court bar, which would facilitate getting access to the arguments. (As Mike Sacks has explained, it’s a pain in the neck for mere members of the public to get in to watch SCOTUS proceedings.)

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3. Small law firms: As we’ve mentioned, the world of small firms is one of our most popular segments right now. With Carolyn Elefant on hiatus, we are especially interested in more voices to cover this space.

4. In-house counsel: The in-house space is hot right now, and we’d love to provide our current in-house writers, Mark Herrmann and Susan Moon, with some company.

5. Government / lobbying: We’d like to expand our coverage of government lawyers and lobbyists. This can be a tricky area to cover, especially if you’re currently working for the government — just ask our managing editor David Lat, who knows all about that — but we’re open to ideas.

6. Overseas markets: We’ve covered foreign legal markets before — e.g., Letter From London — and we now have Dan Harris covering China and Steve Dykstra covering Canada. We remain open to column pitches from lawyers working abroad (e.g. Europe, Asia, or the Country of Africa).

7. Legal technology, including eDiscovery: As you may have noticed, we are building out our legal tech coverage. This year we have added four legal technology writers to our stable — Jeff Bennion, Niki Black, Joe Borstein, Ed Sohn — and we welcome even more.

If you’d like to apply for any of these opportunities — or pitch a column concept of your own — please apply by emailing tips at abovethelaw dot com (subject line: “Columnist Application”), sending us the following items:

1. A current résumé or bio (a link to an online bio like a firm website profile is fine).

2. A short description of your proposed column, ranging from a paragraph to a page, setting forth your editorial ideas or vision.

3. A sample post or column, ideally from 600 to 1000 words in length, showing us what you’d like to write for us. Please note that this sample post should be new; do not send us previously published work. (Making you write something new is our way of testing your interest level.)

Please note that we don’t send emails confirming receipt of applications, and we don’t send rejection emails. If you haven’t heard from us within one month of submitting your application, you can assume we’ve gone in a different direction.

ABOVE THE LAW — INFORMATION FOR INTERNSHIP APPLICATIONS

1. We are seeking an intern to work with us here in our New York office. Our internships are educational experiences and would be excellent for journalism students, undergraduate or graduate, who are interested in digital media or legal journalism.

2. The internship may involve research, writing, editing, social media, and database work — and, to be honest, some of this work will be less than thrilling (i.e., administrative or menial in nature). But there could be byline opportunities for aspiring writers.

3. Please note that this internship is a media internship, not a legal internship. The position is therefore not ideal for law students, since you wouldn’t be doing substantive legal work. Law students can certainly apply — here at ATL, we don’t take a “lawyers need not apply” approach — but we are more interested in working with and mentoring aspiring journalists.

4. The position is paid, albeit modestly (think minimum wage). We are looking for no more than 20 hours per week (i.e., this is not a full-time position, and it does not come with benefits).

5. If you’re interested, please email tips at abovethelaw dot com, subject line “Internship Application.” Please include (a) a short explanation of your interest in the position, (b) a current résumé, and (c) some clips or writing samples, if available (as either links or attachments).

6. Please apply no later than Friday, October 31, at 11:59 PM Eastern time.

As noted above regarding columnist applications, please note that we don’t send emails confirming receipt of applications, and we don’t send rejection emails. If you haven’t heard from us within one month of submitting your application, you can assume we’ve gone in a different direction. Thank you for your interest; we look forward to hearing from you!

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