Former law review editor taking questions Forum

[Wes Henricksen]

I think both sides of this debate have a valid point. Here's a quote from the "law review" entry in Wikipedia:

There are a number of reasons why journal membership is desired by some students :

- some see the intense writing, research and editing experience as invaluable to the student's development as an attorney;
- others see the selection process as helping differentiate the best and the brightest from an already strong group of law students.

[TTT-LS]

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[Wes Henricksen]

Out of curiosity... I've been told that Northeastern U Law School does not have a law review. What other law schools, if any, do not have a law review?

[TTT-LS]

,

[Wes Henricksen]

Out of curiosity... I've been told that Northeastern U Law School does not have a law review. What other law schools, if any, do not have a law review?

No clue. Northwestern certainly has a law review. I didn't know that Northeastern doesn't have one, but I do know that Alaska does have a law review despite not having a law school! (Duke hosts the Alaska L. Rev. and as far as I know staffs it with students as well...)

Yeah, I had heard about the whole Alaska Law Review at Duke phenomenon... quite interesting.

[zay]

Out of curiosity... I've been told that Northeastern U Law School does not have a law review. What other law schools, if any, do not have a law review?

Northeastern apparently now has a law journal (http://nulj.org/journal.html) which they just started this year. Not sure if this is the equivalent to their "law review," but it doesn't seem like NE has many journals at all.

[Wes Henricksen]

Out of curiosity... I've been told that Northeastern U Law School does not have a law review. What other law schools, if any, do not have a law review?

Northeastern apparently now has a law journal (http://nulj.org/journal.html) which they just started this year. Not sure if this is the equivalent to their "law review," but it doesn't seem like NE has many journals at all.

Now that was a surprising bit of news! As of two months ago, Northeastern published its first volume from its brand new law journal. From the looks of it, we now have the newest flagship law review in the nation: the Northeastern University Law Journal. They've finally jumped on the bandwagon.

[Wes Henricksen]

...which begs the question: Are there any remaining ABA-approved law schools that do not host a law review?

[ggocat]

...which begs the question: Are there any remaining ABA-approved law schools that do not host a law review?

Including provisionally? I think Elon is starting one this year... but it's not on their website from what I can tell.

[Wes Henricksen]

...which begs the question: Are there any remaining ABA-approved law schools that do not host a law review?

Including provisionally? I think Elon is starting one this year... but it's not on their website from what I can tell.

They say you learn something new every day.... today, I learned of the existence of Elon University and Elon University School of Law, in Greensboro, North Carolina. I had never heard of this institution. Now there may be an even newer arrival to the law review scene.

[Wes Henricksen]

Interesting tidbit: In 2008, Elon University School of Law became the 200th law school in the United States to be approved by the American Bar Association.

[Wes Henricksen]

In your experience, do authors use the Washington & Lee journal rankings (http://lawlib.wlu.edu/LJ/index.aspx) to determine whether to publish in a particular journal? I am new to the journal rankings and would like to get your opinion of them. Thanks.

I'm a current law review editor [but not EIC], and in my experience authors do loosely follow the rankings you linked to. I think there are a few journals in there that seem to be ranked out of place, though. Duke, Chicago, and Michigan seem to be ranked too low; while UCLA, Georgetown, and Minnesota seem to be ranked too high (I'm drawing these from the 2008-03 "comb." rankings set on the W&L site). Aside from rankings, authors also seem to prefer not to publish with any one given journal too many times in a row, though this may not apply with equal force to the top 5 or 6 journals.

Here's a link to another resource regarding law review rankings: http://www.nyls.edu/library/for_faculty ... _rankings/

[ggocat]

Here's a link to another resource regarding law review rankings: http://www.nyls.edu/library/for_faculty ... _rankings/

I'm not a big fan of the author prominence rankings. It just seems like a very weird methodology. So what if a professor from a USNWR top 25 school wrote an article (625 points) if nobody cares, reads, cites to it? I'd care more about a good article from a professor at a fourth tier school (225 points).

The University of Connecticut did a series of articles in 2006: Ronen Perry, The Relative Value of American Law Reviews: Refinement and Implementation, 39 Conn. L. Rev. 1 (2006); Ronen Perry, Correlation Versus Causality: Further Thoughts on the Law Review / Law School Liason, 39 Conn. L. Rev. 77 (2006); Alfred Brophy, Law [Review]'s Empire: The Assessment of Law Reviews and Trends in Legal Scholarship, 39 Conn. L. Rev. 101 (2006). I haven't read all of these, but Ronen Perry also wrote another article about law review rankings: Ronen Perry, The Relative Value of American Law Reviews: A Critical Appraisal of Ranking Methods, 11 Va. J. L. & Tech. 1 (2006).

Ah, by the way... Perry wrote in 2006 that Northeastern University was the only ABA-approved law school without a general-content journal.

[Wes Henricksen]

Here's a link to another resource regarding law review rankings: http://www.nyls.edu/library/for_faculty ... _rankings/

I'm not a big fan of the author prominence rankings. It just seems like a very weird methodology. So what if a professor from a USNWR top 25 school wrote an article (625 points) if nobody cares, reads, cites to it? I'd care more about a good article from a professor at a fourth tier school (225 points).

The University of Connecticut did a series of articles in 2006: Ronen Perry, The Relative Value of American Law Reviews: Refinement and Implementation, 39 Conn. L. Rev. 1 (2006); Ronen Perry, Correlation Versus Causality: Further Thoughts on the Law Review / Law School Liason, 39 Conn. L. Rev. 77 (2006); Alfred Brophy, Law [Review]'s Empire: The Assessment of Law Reviews and Trends in Legal Scholarship, 39 Conn. L. Rev. 101 (2006). I haven't read all of these, but Ronen Perry also wrote another article about law review rankings: Ronen Perry, The Relative Value of American Law Reviews: A Critical Appraisal of Ranking Methods, 11 Va. J. L. & Tech. 1 (2006).

Ah, by the way... Perry wrote in 2006 that Northeastern University was the only ABA-approved law school without a general-content journal.

Thanks for the info. So it looks like now every ABA-approved law school has a "law review." Also, I agree with your point on the rankings based on authors from top law schools. But they've got to find some way to rank the journals. What would we lawyers / law students / law professors do without rankings???

[cantaboot]

I am so interested in a secondary journal of our school. but for the sake of boosting my resume I think I must put the flagship review as my top choice ... sigh.

[ggocat]

But they've got to find some way to rank the journals. What would we lawyers / law students / law professors do without rankings???

Ha. True.

[cantaboot]

our school got an unofficial quasi journal (I guess it's for those who don't make the official prestigious/ semi-prestigious ones) which does sound interesting. I wonder if I should "join" the board if i don't make the cut.

and then, again, if roughly the same percentage of people who do the write-on, I don't think I won't be able to make the cut.

[TTT-LS]

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[ggocat]

I am so interested in a secondary journal of our school. but for the sake of boosting my resume I think I must put the flagship review as my top choice ... sigh.

I don't really understand this. Whatever you can do on a secondary journal, you can do on a law review -- since the latter are general interest journals. I realize that on a LR, you'd have to read and edit pieces that might (or might not) fall outside of your area of subject matter interest, but in my experience that has been a positive.

+1. You can write your casenote/comment/whatever on any topic you want.

[edmoser]

I agree. You can write about whatever topic you want, so there's really no benefit in that respect to doing a secondary journal. And even when you're source checking a professor's article, you get assigned to only a part of the article (we split it up into 1/4s) so it isn't even like you're learning any substantive law--cite checking and formatting is all the same regardless of subject matter.

The only benefit I see coming from a secondary journal is that you can use it to show a particular interest in an area of law if you're applying to a boutique law firm that specializes in it... but even then I think the prestige of law review would outweigh any show of interest coming from a secondary journal.

[ggocat]

And even when you're source checking a professor's article, you get assigned to only a part of the article (we split it up into 1/4s) so it isn't even like you're learning any substantive law--cite checking and formatting is all the same regardless of subject matter.

Editing work will depend on the journal. Ours has students edit the whole article. But I agree with your general proposition about not learning the substantive law. Even if your journal has you edit a whole article, it's spread out over 40+ hours, so it's difficult to remember the substantive material long-term.

[cantaboot]

thanks guys.

The UVA stats on how many people pick up the packet may not indicate anything. Last year almost everybody picked it up at my school, but ultimately fewer than 60% of them turned it in.

i was so astonished .... I thought most do not mind working for a few more days to boost one's resume

[Wes Henricksen]

I am so interested in a secondary journal of our school. but for the sake of boosting my resume I think I must put the flagship review as my top choice ... sigh.

I don't really understand this. Whatever you can do on a secondary journal, you can do on a law review -- since the latter are general interest journals. I realize that on a LR, you'd have to read and edit pieces that might (or might not) fall outside of your area of subject matter interest, but in my experience that has been a positive.

+1. You can write your casenote/comment/whatever on any topic you want.

At my law school, there actually is a difference in the type of article you can write on a secondary journal as opposed to the law review. My school's principal secondary journal allowed (and encouraged) students to write policy-based notes and comments. On the law review, however, students are only allowed to write strictly law-based notes and comments--no policy arguments allowed. So that aspect of our law review left a bitter taste in some students' mouths. But I do agree that as long as you can find a legal argument on which to base an article, you can write it for the law review. (And some law reviews may allow policy-based arguments as well.)

[Wes Henricksen]

The UVA stats on how many people pick up the packet may not indicate anything. Last year almost everybody picked it up at my school, but ultimately fewer than 60% of them turned it in.

i was so astonished .... I thought most do not mind working for a few more days to boost one's resume

A lot of students, at every school it seems, pick up the packet but don't turn it in. From talking with students, this seems to happen because many of them get frustrated with the submission paper they are writing and decide it's not worth turning it in since they won't be successful anyway. Of course, the way to avoid this happening is to plan ahead and not to procrastinate during the competition.

[TTT-LS]

A lot of students, at every school it seems, pick up the packet but don't turn it in. From talking with students, this seems to happen because many of them get frustrated with the submission paper they are writing and decide it's not worth turning it in since they won't be successful anyway. Of course, the way to avoid this happening is to plan ahead and not to procrastinate during the competition.

I think another thing that you can do to help avoid that kind of frustration is plan ahead for a few very basic argument frameworks. For instance, what would a federalism critique look like? How would you write a piece that argues from a law & econ perspective? What about a theme based on a need for Congress to break new statutory ground? I may be wrong about this, but my gut is that you can argue almost any significant legal issue from one of the three following perspectives: federalism, originalism, or textualism (whether you agree with those approaches or not).

You don't need to know what the writing competition topic is to think about these ideas. Rather, I think it helps to consider the very basic structure of how those sorts of approaches would work. Then, when you start the writing competition, if you can't come up with something else, just adopt one of your pre-fab argument frameworks and run with it.