Those All Powerful Law Review Student Editors (Again)

A group of anonymous law review article editors are publishing the Anonymous Articles Editor Blog. Hat tip to Adjunct Law Prof Blog. This new blog is offering "tips for law professors on how to increase their chances of getting published (or at least a favorable reading by an articles editor)." Apparently some law reviews are not so desperate that would publish Nova Southeastern law prof Robert Jarvis' grocery list if submitted.

Leah M. Christensen and Julie A. Oseid have successfully navigated the law review selection process. See their recent article: Navigating the Law Review Article Selection Process: An Empirical Study of Those with All the Power -- Student Editors, 59 S.C. L. Rev. 175-224 (2007) [Westlaw].

From the introduction:

A simple but worthwhile question in this debate is whether this selection process is fair. The fairness and impartiality of article selection is important to new law professors. For them, success in the legal academy may depend on what, where, and how often they publish in the appropriate law journal. New law professors not only face the quantitative expectations of how many published articles are required for promotion and tenure but also the qualitative expectations about what types of articles “count” for promotion and tenure. The problem is that these qualitative requirements may be left unwritten or unstated. The increased competition for publication space, coupled with the potential bias of the current system towards author credentials, is a disturbing trend for a majority of new professors in the legal academy. If student editors rely upon author credentials as a “proxy” for quality, then legal academics need to explore this reality more openly.

This study seeks to explore these questions and add to the growing body of empirical research on law review article selection. The study examines how law review editors at all levels of the law school “tier” system--Top 15, Top 25, Top 50, Top 100, Third Tier, Fourth Tier and Specialty Journals) -- weigh the importance of author credentials, topic, format, and timing of an article submission in making their selection decisions. Although the study found that most editors consider each of these factors to some degree, the data also suggest that the higher ranked journals rely more heavily on author credentials than lower ranked journals. Specifically, editors at higher tiered law schools were highly influenced by where an author has previously published. Further, while not a single editor at a Top 15 school considered an author's practice experience in making a publication decision, a majority of the editors at lower tiered journals rated practice experience as an important factor in article selection. While the study participants almost unanimously agreed that they were influenced by the topic of an article, there were important differences among the law schools concerning the actual topics about which they would be most or least likely to publish. In addition to describing the *181 survey results in more detail, this Article will offer specific commentary from the student editors about their means of selecting law review articles.

[JH]