Meet the new editors-in-chief of the Kansas Law Review and the Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy
With the new school year just around the corner, the Kansas Law Review and Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy are already at work preparing for their new volumes of legal discourse. At the head of these publications are Review’s Editor-In-Chief Karen Campbell and Journal’s Editor-In-Chief Emma Mays.
Third-year law students Campbell and Mays learned about their selections as head of KU Law’s publications in the spring and began preparing for the upcoming year by setting goals, reviewing write-on submissions, contacting new staff editors and selecting and editing the articles for the first issues of the year.
“We actually have almost all our articles for our entire volume, which is really exciting,” said Campbell. “Emma can probably agree with me that it’s difficult to track down authors, but it’s been really meaningful, and I’ve learned a lot through the process.”
Last year, Campbell and Mays served their respective publications as staff editors and are no strangers to the process of teching and spading, which means checking citations for all the articles in the first issue of their volumes.
“It means a lot that KU Law provides us an outlet to add to legal scholarship. It feels really important to me and I’m glad to be a part of it,” said Mays.
Collaboration & Friendly Competition
Goals look a little different this year as building construction on the third through fifth floors – where the publication offices are located – has continued throughout the summer and into the start of the school year.
“We’ve reconfigured the Law Review office to include a study space,” said Campbell. “I’m hoping it can be a collaborative space that people who are not on Review can come in, hang out and chat.”
Both editors hope to bring a similar stability on top of other opportunities for growth as previous editors-in-chief. Sometimes this includes less glamourous goals including proper documentation and a retention policy.
“We have a lot of documented institutionalized knowledge on how the issues get made, but not much in how the transition of the board is supposed to go,” said Mays. “We hope to leave it in much better shape at the end of the year.”
However, being involved in the publications isn’t just pushing papers and making edits. Both editors plan on continuing long celebrated traditions including a bowling tournament that the Review has dominated for three years.
“We recruited strictly on bowling this year,” joked Mays. “There was no writing requirement to get on the Journal. Just bowling.”
Finally, the editors are looking for ways to better support their staff and the other students at KU Law by ensuring students of all backgrounds are aware of their possibilities with Review or Journal and incorporating resume builders for students already involved.
“When you’re a staff editor you only get one credit hour for your work and you do a lot more than one credit hour worth of work,” said Campbell. “It’s important to me to create more opportunities like awards or specializations so that people have a resume builder on top of the credit hour we receive for our involvement.”
Karen Campbell
Editor-in-chief of the Kansas Law Review
Campbell is originally from Lawrence, Kansas. She received her undergraduate degree in English from the University of Kansas. During her undergrad, Campbell studied abroad several times traveling to Costa Rica, Italy, Great Britain, Vietnam, Morocco and Bolivia. After her graduation, Campbell moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked as an aide in the Marshal’s Office of the Supreme Court. After three years, she decided to return to Lawrence and to KU to complete her law degree.
Campbell’s blood has always run crimson and blue, but she’s also had a history with the Kansas Law Review long before she became a 1L.
“My dad went to KU Law and was on the Law Review,” Campbell said. “I was born during the winter of his third year. He used to bring me in my baby carrier up to the Law Review office while he was going to class.”
Since joining the Law Review, Campbell has enjoyed seeing the support and growth of her fellow Review staff.
“I barely knew most of the Law Review when we started last year and now, they’re some of my best friends,” she said. “During election season last year, multiple people wrote recommendation letters for other staff, even if they were running for the same position. It ended up being such an awesome team building support system. Everyone recognized each other’s strengths in a way that we’ve never really talked about before.”
After her graduation in 2025, Campbell plans to join Shamberg, Johnson & Bergman, Chtd. in Kansas City, Missouri.
Emma Mays
Editor-in-chief of the Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy
Mays is originally from Hastings, Nebraska, a small-town west of Lincoln. She received her undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Nebraska and decided to follow her public policy interests to Kansas where she started law school.
“I’m excited and super honored to have the opportunity to lead the Journal,” said Mays. “We have a great team, and I was inspired by the work that the board did last year.”
This isn’t the first time both publications have had two women serving as editors-in-chief, but Mays is excited to see more women in leadership especially as enrollment trends continue to shift in women’s favor.
“Almost all of our board are women,” said Mays. “It wouldn’t matter to me either way, but it feels nice that the publication boards are reflecting the trend of more women going to law school.”
Mays looks forward to celebrating her staff’s successes – as well as the successes of Review and the other students at KU Law – as the work on their volume continues.
“You put so much work and time into your article and it’s so fun to see the Law Review members and my fellow Journal members get excited to have their article published,” she said. “It’s a lot of work, so it’s fun when it pays off.”
Mays plans to join Husch Blackwell as a commercial litigation associate after her graduation in 2025.
– By Emma Herrman