Is There Room for Another Law Journal?

Some prominent academics think the answer may be yes. I have just received a copy of volume1, no.1 of the Journal of Law, published under the auspices of the Green Bag. The idea is to have a journal that is really a compilation of several mini journals that are innovative by law review standards.  Although the issue is innovative, I think it could have been more innovative, for example, including a mini journal of short essays with the intellectual contents of the full traditional article. But decide for yourself. Here is the website. Here is the description of the journal:

The Journal of Law looks like a conventional law review, but it is really a bundle of small, unconventional law journals, all published together in one volume.

This approach saves money over separate publication. It also frees editors of the individual journals to spend more time finding and refining good material, and less time dealing with mundane matters relating to the printing of their work product.

Thus the Journal of Law’s generic name: it is no one journal in particular, and it is not tied to any particular institution, subject, specialty, or method.

The idea is that the Journal of Law will be an incubator of sorts, providing for legal intellectuals something akin to what business schools’ incubators offer commercial entrepreneurs: friendly, small-scale, in-kind support for promising, unconventional ideas for which (a) there might be a market, but (b) there is not yet backing among established, deep-pocketed powers-that-be.

For a more elaborate explanation, see
Ross E. Davies, Like Water for Law Reviews: An Introduction to the Journal of Law, 1 J.L. 1 (2011).

(ljs)