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I know this is not directly on point with clerkships, but this seemed to be the most appropriate forum out of the options listed.

I was wondering what people's opinions were on the relative prestige for publishing a paper in (1) a fourth tier law school's secondary journal with which I have published in the past, or (2) a very prestigious undergrad's law review. this undergrad does not have a law school.

Of course high level journal prestige does not become an issue, until one enters academia (in my experience, most high level journals do not even look at a non-professor's article), but I am just wondering what people's opinions are about these two low-prestige options. Of course, at my fresh-out-of-LS level, any real full length journal publication is a big plus. Intuitively, I am thinking that if I can get the undergrad's journal, I take it, if for no other reason than to diversify the journals in which I will have been published.

Thoughts?

I was already thinking "diversify" before I got to your last sentence. I think since neither option is particularly preftigious, you go with the second one. I don't really know anything about publishing or academia, but I would assume it's better to have two journals publish you once than to have one journal publish you twice. But I defer to anyone with actual knowledge / experience in this arena.

Every time I publish I make it a point never to submit to the journal that just published or has published one of my papers in the past. I have never heard that its bad to have one journal publish multiple papers, but if the idea of publishing is to get your name and your ideas out to as broad of a readership as possible, publishing in multiple journals is the best way to do it. Also, for me it just looks better to have two journal names on your resume then one journal twice.

yes--I think this is good advice and I tend to agree...even if the journal I choose is actually an undergraduate law review. thanks.

objctnyrhnr wrote:I know this is not directly on point with clerkships, but this seemed to be the most appropriate forum out of the options listed.

I was wondering what people's opinions were on the relative prestige for publishing a paper in (1) a fourth tier law school's secondary journal with which I have published in the past, or (2) a very prestigious undergrad's law review. this undergrad does not have a law school.

Of course high level journal prestige does not become an issue, until one enters academia (in my experience, most high level journals do not even look at a non-professor's article), but I am just wondering what people's opinions are about these two low-prestige options. Of course, at my fresh-out-of-LS level, any real full length journal publication is a big plus. Intuitively, I am thinking that if I can get the undergrad's journal, I take it, if for no other reason than to diversify the journals in which I will have been published.

Thoughts?

Eh. I've never heard of an "undergrad law review." Are you sure that it's not like the equivalent of a school newspaper or something? I mean, without knowing more about this undergrad law review, I'd suggest that you shop your article around some more and try to get it published somewhere else.

I say this as someone with significant disdain for legal "scholarship" but also someone who has published--since no one's really reading these things for their trenchant insights into the law, you should be trying to publish in places that will get you the most "legal points" and i think a law school journal beats an undergrad journal any day

Of course high level journal prestige does not become an issue, until one enters academia

This is mostly wrong. It used to be the case that law schools didn't care where an entry level candidate published, but it's not that way any more. You'll be competing with fellows and VAPs with multiple publications in top tier law reviews; it's going to be really hard to draw any interest if you have only placed articles in fourth tier specialty journals or worse. About the best you could hope for in that scenario is that your CV is otherwise spotless (top five law school plus federal COA clerkship plus no less than two and no more than four years of high end practice experience) and you could land a fellowship or VAP, where you could then try to place

(in my experience, most high level journals do not even look at a non-professor's article)

Also mostly wrong. I've placed articles (as a non-prof) in flagship LRs in the 25-50 range and the 50-75 range. Yale and Harvard both publish non-prof articles routinely (though they have blind submissions, which makes it a bit "easier").

but I am just wondering what people's opinions are about these two low-prestige options.

I'd probably rework the paper and resubmit it. You'll get no points placing the paper in an undergrad journal. Zero, zilch. The main problem with the fourth tier specialty journal is that since you've already published in it, people will think you just have a contact on the editorial board and aren't going through the normal submission process.

By the way, if you're doing this with academia as the ultimate goal, you'd be 100% better served to go enroll in a PhD program. There are sooooooo few jobs right now, and really, here are the things that might give someone a fighting chance at a job (i.e., they'd have more than a lottery ticket's chance):

SCOTUS clerkship
Demonstrated specialization (i.e., multiple publications) in trusts and/or tax (preferably "and")
High-end fellowship or VAP -- Climenko, Bigelow, one of the Yale or Stanford fellowships, and that's about it (I've heard that multiple NYU VAPs and Columbia A-i-Ls struck out the past few years)
PhD

That's about it, and if you're a recent law school grad, all but the last of those will take a lot of luck and/or now be impossible.

I've never heard of an "undergrad law review."

Dartmouth has one. Glancing at its last issue, it includes a reprinted excerpt from Martha Nussbaum and then a bunch of articles from either (i) practitioners from fourth tier schools or (ii) law students from good schools.

I would NOT publish in it if academia is at all a goal.