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I've been looking into a couple of incidents involving the law review submission and publication process, and I'd like to hear from current law students and law graduates regarding dubious submission and publication practices. This could include everything from outright authorial fraud of various kinds, to submitting low-quality work that requires extensive editing to be transformed into something arguably worth publishing, to anything else you think would be noteworthy in the context of a piece discussing the dysfunctions of the law journal publishing system.

Please either PM me or send an email to paul.campos@colorado.edu

All responses will be kept in strict confidence. Thanks in advance.

Paul Campos wrote:to submitting low-quality work that requires extensive editing to be transformed into something arguably worth publishing

This would probably apply to 90% of the submitted work.

Gamecubesupreme wrote:

Paul Campos wrote:to submitting low-quality work that requires extensive editing to be transformed into something arguably worth publishing

This would probably apply to 90% of the submitted work.

Maybe more. Amost nothing submitted to my journal resembled "publication worthy" when we got it.

kalvano wrote:

Gamecubesupreme wrote:

Paul Campos wrote:to submitting low-quality work that requires extensive editing to be transformed into something arguably worth publishing

This would probably apply to 90% of the submitted work.

Maybe more. Amost nothing submitted to my journal resembled "publication worthy" when we got it.

I think he's referring to the quality of the writing, as opposed to the quality of the content

guano wrote:

kalvano wrote:

Gamecubesupreme wrote:

Paul Campos wrote:to submitting low-quality work that requires extensive editing to be transformed into something arguably worth publishing

This would probably apply to 90% of the submitted work.

Maybe more. Amost nothing submitted to my journal resembled "publication worthy" when we got it.

I think he's referring to the quality of the writing, as opposed to the quality of the content

I believe it was Fred Rodell who said there are two things wrong with most legal writing: one is the content, and the other is the style.

Anyway I appreciate the feedback I've gotten so far, and look forward to getting more.

guano wrote:

kalvano wrote:

Gamecubesupreme wrote:

Paul Campos wrote:to submitting low-quality work that requires extensive editing to be transformed into something arguably worth publishing

This would probably apply to 90% of the submitted work.

Maybe more. Amost nothing submitted to my journal resembled "publication worthy" when we got it.

I think he's referring to the quality of the writing, as opposed to the quality of the content

I meant both.

Amount of tangential footnotes being part of the criteria for accepting a submission. I think it is absolutely ridiculous. So much of the criteria is about whether or not, at face value, the article looks good.

This seems like an ethical request. You can't be serious.

Nelson wrote:This seems like an ethical request. You can't be serious.

...how?

Campos, I was annoyed by profs who cited their anecdotal stories as data. Also, profs who used cutesy footnotes referring to Dora the Explorer were not as amusing as they thought they were. Don't really remember any specifics now, though.

On my journal, we didn't see as many examples of professors writing with the thought that the law students would fill in the blanks. To be fair, an article that came to us with that level of disrespect was automatically rejected and we expected the author to have at least made a good-faith effort in their citations and so on before acceptance. That said, arguably the most annoying thing for me was the number of submissions received without any consideration of the journal's subject matter. Most authors appeared to just send their article to every journal under the sun without regard to the journal being about a specific subject like the environment, technology, legislation, etc. (obviously this doesn't apply to general law reviews). That required us to waste time reading things to see if there was a connection to the journal's subject area that could have easily been accomplished if the author spent the time to think more about what subject-specific journals fit with the article's content.

Journals: Students turn and look the other way for prestige.

Thanks to everyone who has sent all sorts of eye-opening stuff along. If you've been thinking of doing so please contribute your own perspective on this topic.

Prof Campos : Please include the scholarship of the Deans of Indiana Tech which includes work so worthless than just describing should be sufficient. This low quality work passing for scholarship and how freaking spoiled and entitled the Deans are as evidenced by their publications has to be given some attention, at least a paragraph. (please)