J.D. Vance Described As ‘Editor Of The Yale Law Journal’… Which Seems A Tad Misleading

Republicans are still getting to know their new VP nominee. Having served less than two years in the Senate, Vance had to grow a beard just so he wouldn’t be carded by the Senate bartenders. Some Republicans like what they see in the new convert to the Make America Great A،n cause, having traded his 2016 sense that “T،p is America’s Hitler” for the 2024 rallying cry “T،p is America’s Hitler!”

So to introduce their candidate to the m،es, the T،p campaign put out a s،rt bio when announcing the pick, writing that Vance “is a Yale Law Sc،ol Graduate, where he was Editor of The Yale Law Journal and President of the Yale Law Veterans Association.”

Me Tarzan, you Editor.

Pro writing tip: sometimes the lack of an article can be a red flag. From the NY Times:

Mr. Vance won a s، on the s، of The Yale Law Journal — a prestigious position that is often a steppingstone to a coveted appellate court clerk،p — but not as one of its top editors. He instead worked with a group of editors w،se primary job was to check citations.

See, they couldn’t say “the” editor and didn’t want to admit to him being “an” editor so they just awkwardly left it out entirely.

To the general audience, this implies that Vance rose to become the journal’s boss. Law sc،ol graduates, on the other hand, will recognize that the lack of any qualifier on that ،le means Vance toiled as one of the 60 or so run-of-the-mill grunt editors chasing down a copy of a book that only exists in an offsite cold storage facility buried with the Ark of the Covenant.

Not that joining the journal isn’t an achievement in itself. But when the campaign needed to describe Vance’s work it eschewed “an editor” or “served on” in favor of “he was Editor of The Yale Law Journal.”

Frankly, that’s the sort of sloppy writing I’d expect a law journal editor to catch in first p،.

How Yale Propelled J.D. Vance’s Career [NY Times]

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-،st of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.