Courtesy of Washington University in St. Louis

The editorial board for the new Washington University undergraduate law journal called The Circuit. The journal will be interdisciplinary and will seek to help educate readers on legal issues in the nation and worldwide.

There’s a new item on the docket for the Washington University Pre-Law Society. The group plans to publish an undergraduate law journal called The Circuit.

According to a release from the society (WUPLS), “The mission of The Circuit is to provide students across a myriad of academic fields the opportunity to publish their academic essays that grapple with law, legal concepts, institutions or issues from any time and place.”

Junior Aaron Kacel, the president of WUPLS, came up with the idea for the publication prior to the start of this school year.

“We spend so much time articulating thoughts and revising and making sure we’re proud of our words that we’re presenting to our professors [in papers],” he said. “It kind of goes away into the abyss of our computer. There needs to be a way to bring together the ideas we spend so much time working on in order to further knowledge about law, so I came up with the idea to reward undergraduates and in the process of doing so, we would advance law related knowledge.”

The members of WUPLS aim to promote greater understanding of the legal puzzles that face or have faced the nation and the globe. Additionally, they seek to reward undergraduates for their intellectual explorations and advancement of law-related knowledge outside of the classroom.

WUPLS has created an editorial board to oversee the collection, publication and dissemination of the articles.

“It’s not an undergraduate law review,” history professor and WUPLS adviser David Konig said.

Rather, the publication will be interdisciplinary.

“It’s consistent with a general emphasis on undergrad research to encourage by reward of undergrad research, we want to see connections between law and other areas of American thought and behavior that might not be readily available,” Konig said. “It’s going to be related to law and its broader context.”

The Circuit is looking for academic essays that grapple with law, legal concepts, institutions or issues from any time period. Essays from any course can be submitted.

WUPLS has started to advertise the publication and has been seeking articles through a variety of ways. The editorial board created a Facebook event and sent a message to its mailing list, which contains 250 people. The board also appealed to professors to generate interest.

“We have contacted individual classes and our editorial board is implementing our strategies by using course listings and contacting professors who are teaching classes that are relevant to the journal,” Kacel said.

Konig said the editorial board expects to get articles from students majoring in several departments. This week, for example, members of The Circuit’s editorial board will be speaking in the Introduction to Political Theory class about submitting to the publication.

Kacel hopes that the publication will set a precedent for the future.

“Our ultimate goal is to establish the journal’s presence on campus and pave the way for the publication to be a fixture of the University for years to come,” he said.

Besides creating the publication, WUPLS has spearheaded numerous events since its inception in 2009.

Next week, WUPLS will be hosting an event called “True Life: I’m in Law School.” The event includes a panel discussion with students from every year in law school who will provide insight on law school.

“We want to help foster career aspirations,” Kacel said.

In the past, WUPLS put on test preparation events, as well as an event in which attorneys speak about different opportunities available in the law field.

WUPLS has been successful in reviving the previous pre-law organizations that existed on campus.

The publication and the events have provided a good infusion of energy for pre-law,” Konig said.