A Letter from the Co-Editor-in-Chief, José Caballero
“In Lumine Tuo Videbimus Lumen” – in your light we see the light – is Columbia’s cardinal motto. When I think about the Columbia Hispanic Pre-Law Review, I reflect on the light that our community, stories, and lived experiences bring to legal scholarship. I assume the role of Co-Editor-in-Chief with great responsibility and a steadfast commitment to the values of excellence, scholarship, and truth.
Throughout my time as a Columbia undergraduate, I have spent ample time debating and exploring some of humanity’s biggest inquiries. How does the human mind work? What are the statistical models and inferences that best explain human decision-making? Which welfare systems best provide healthcare for all? With this background, I investigate the effects of decision-making in policy contexts and bring an interdisciplinary approach to writing, testing, and theorizing about legal scholarship. I have shared my work through Harvard Public Health Magazine, ABC News, and USA Today, among others.
During my tenure, my hope is that the Review nurtures a diverse, original, and rigorous space for the interchange of ideas — and that it reflects the rich tapestry of viewpoints our community has to offer. In 2024, when I participated in a White House policy roundtable, I had an epiphany: one’s lived experience with the law is not an anecdote. We are the primary sources — the data, the case studies, the precedents that give birth to laws. It is therefore our duty and civic responsibility to use the principles of truth and reason in our storytelling — where truth trumps the fiction that so often blurs reality.
I come to this position with the understanding that writing, through its form, gives us both hope and light. Columbia has taught me to be my own Homer, my Virgil, my Odysseus — my own hero. In serving this great publication, I pledge to be the Sancho to your Quijote, the Virgil to your Dante. And while the Columbia Pre-Law Review may not be an inferno or a chivalric tale, it is certainly a space where anything feels possible — where ideas take flight, writings ultimately become their own masterpiece, and the law becomes not just a subject, but a practice.
See you on College Walk.
Abrazos,
José