Today at 4:00 p.m. in Stuart 409, the Boston College Law School Democrats will elect that group’s President for the 2008-09 academic year. The election features two candidates, a rising 3L (also the incumbent) and a rising 2L. The 2/3L faceoff thus raises a small, but nevertheless important and perennial, issue for student groups at BCLS: should student organizations, acting to optimize the benefit to the greatest number of their constituents over the long run, choose rising 2Ls or 3Ls to represent them? As a general rule, and acknowledging that there can be important exceptions to general rules, I think that 2Ls should sit at the helm of most student organizations.

Most of the problems that arise when 3Ls sit as heads of organizations arise, in turn, out of the fact that most rising 3Ls who run for office are incumbents, or at least “insiders” who have held elected positions in the organization the previous year. Rising 3L insiders have a lot of knowledge, experience, and built-up accomplishments that rising 2Ls normally lack. This puts the rising 2L at a unfair disadvantage, because the rising 3L probably acquired that knowledge, experience and those accomplishments because of and not despite his or her leadership role the previous year. This makes it hard to compare the candidates, and to assess their intrinsic capacities to lead. 

Aside from any managerial considerations, though, there is also the under-discussed issue of the role of resumes and career building in all of this. When 1Ls work with 2L student leaders, many 1Ls have the expectation that if they work hard, and sacrifice some studying for some extracurriculars, the 1Ls will get to lead the following year. Just as important as the experience of leading, many 1Ls will be applying for jobs in the Fall of their 2L year. Many employers look for leadership skills to set students apart from their peers. When a hard-working 1L is effectively blocked from the presidency by an equally hard-working 2L, the hard-working 1L will be justifiably disappointed. Rising 2Ls, on the other hand, have little use for fancy titles, because most of them already have summer jobs.

My sense is that the strongest argument offered by rising 3L insiders or incumbents who run for office is that these insider-incumbents are, actually, very good leaders and that the built-up knowledge, experience, accomplishments referenced above will contribute to, and in no way detract from, their effectivness.

I have no doubt that this is true in many cases. Indeed, I can think of many rising 3Ls now who have done an incredible job for their respective organizations in their 2L years. My response to these individuals, however, is that they can accomplish even more by stepping down from their positions and cultivating a new crop of leaders. As the Chinese proverb says: you can gain more by letting go.

Rising 3Ls in their prime who allow and encourage rising 2Ls to get elected do not loose much power to control clubs; on the contrary, they often enhance their influence as the clubs’ newly-minted grandfathers.

There are some who are suspicious that although our current rising 3L leaders may be paragons of virtue, in the long run, there will be rising 3Ls whose motivations are less pure, and whose quest for leadership is more the product of personal greed than the consequence of noblesse oblige.

I do not go so far. The 3L leaders I have seen and known have all be terrific leaders and great people. They are, after all, students at BC Law. However, I think there is something to be said for thinking about the “morning after”: while these 3Ls might be great for the club the following year, the club may not be so lucky the year after that. What happens when the two-term 3L graduates? Who will bring the rising 2Ls into fold? What is there to reduce the risk of a power-vacuum in the next election cycle?

In sum, I believe that rising 3Ls should as a general rule step aside from their leadership positions, and work on mentoring the 2Ls in a behind-the-scenes capacity. This will usually benefit the organization in the long run. The 3Ls have had their turn, and now it’s more likely than not time to step aside.