Why Should You Publish in Online Law Review Supplements

Over at The Faculty Lounge, Jacqueline Lipton posted an entry entitled Scholarship Tips. In response, a couple of readers posted comments about publishing in online law review supplements:

-From Haskell Murray: "I'd like to use the online journals for some of my more time sensitive articles, but being a junior, pre-tenure professor it seems like I should focus most of my time on traditional articles."

-From Marcia Narnine: "How are online business and law reviews perceived?"

My general sense is that tenure and promotion committees don't use the shorter pieces in online law review supplements (usually in the range of 1,500-6,000 words) to meet numerical requirements for tenure and promotion decisions. That said, I think that they are given some weight in evaluating the scholarly productivity of faculty members. 

I am a big advocate of both pre- and post-tenure faculty publishing in online law review supplements but because of any direct effect that such publications have on T&P decisions. Why? Here are the PowerPoints from a presentation that I gave to the faculty at my law school: 

Download Online Law Review Supplements

Summarizing these slides, here ares some of the main advantages I see of publishing in online law review supplements:

-Getting the first word on major legal developments;

-Attracting a wider and more varied audience than a traditional law review audience;

-Being able to lay the groundwork/test ideas for a traditional law review articles;

-A much shorter timeline from acceptance to publication (usually 1-2 months);

-Looser footnoting/Bluebook requirements;

-Often working with terrific editors at top notch law schools;

-A decent chance of being cited or involved in appellate litigation for hot button issues;

-A decent chance of being invited to conferences/symposia

-Creating something much more usable in class than a 20,000+ word traditional article.

-CM