All eligible 1Ds and 2Es may petition for membership on the Maryland Law Review by competing in the spring petitioning process. All members are expected to make a two-year commitment to working on the Maryland Law Review.

The Maryland Law Review and the other journals of the University of Maryland School of Law conduct a joint petitioning competition after exams in the spring semester. Students have only one opportunity, the spring petitioning process, to petition for membership on the Law Review.

Petitioning requires prospective members to write a case note on a recently decided case. Law journals publish case notes in order to provide the legal community with an update on the law regarding issues on which the Supreme Court, or the high court of a state, has recently made a significant ruling. The case note form offers practitioners, judges, and scholars a factual summary and analysis of a court's opinion within a broad legal context and provides an objective critique of the court's reasoning.

Petitioners will not know the topic or the case until they receive the petition packet at the start of the petitioning process after spring semester exams.

New Staff Selection: The Maryland Law Review selects approximately twenty-five to thirty new staff members each year through the petitioning process. The first 75% of positions will be filled by the petitions with the highest numerical scores as evaluated by the Law Review. The remaining 25% of positions are determined by a combination of writing and grades. No one will be invited to join the Maryland Law Review without writing an acceptable petition.

Transfer Students: Transfer students may compete in a limited writing competition conducted jointly by the four journals in the fall semester.