ylj-topic-selection
Use when deciding whether a legal-scholarship idea is a fit for The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) and which track it belongs in. It tests generalist significance, timeliness, and novelty potential; it does not draft the thesis or run the formal preemption search.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill ylj-topic-selection --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Topic Selection & Fit (ylj-topic-selection) YLJ is the **generalist flagship** of American legal scholarship — read across the whole discipline by academics, judges, and practitioners. A topic earns a slot only if its claim matters **beyond a single doctrinal niche**. This skill screens the idea before you invest in a full draft; it does not yet build the claim (`ylj-thesis-and-contribution`) or prove novelty (`ylj-preemption-check`). ## When to trigger - You have an idea and want to know if YLJ is the right home (vs. a specialty review) - Several candidate angles exist and you must pick the one with the widest reach - Deciding Article vs. Essay vs. Feature vs. (for Yale students) Note/Comment - A timely development (new statute, circuit split, landmark opinion) might justify the Forum ## Fit test (a topic must clear all four) 1. **Generalist stakes.** A constitutional-law professor and a commercial-litigation partner can both say in one sentence why the claim matters. If only specialists in your subfield care, target a specialty review instead. 2. **A claim, not a survey.** YLJ wants an argument that changes how readers think about a doctrine, theory, or institution — not a doct
- When to trigger
- Fit test (a topic must clear all four)
- Fit-gate ledger
- Generalist-significance ladder (push the topic up a rung)
- Track sizing
- Checklist
- Anti-patterns
- Output format
- Supplementary resources
What does the ylj-topic-selection skill do?
Use when deciding whether a legal-scholarship idea is a fit for The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) and which track it belongs in. It tests generalist significance, timeliness, and novelty potential; it does not draft the thesis or run the formal preemption search.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill ylj-topic-selection --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 984 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.