National Jurist - February 2008 - (Page 26) “There is no room anymore for the general law review because every law school has one,” Jarvis said. “So now you have to set up specialized law reviews. At first law schools started international journals. But that category got so filled up, now they have to look for more esoteric fields.” Jarvis said law reviews are following a similar path to cable television. There is a channel for every interest. But, he warns, many of these journals struggle after their inaugural issue to find quality authors and articles. “You publish more and more student articles to fill the space,” he said. “And you accept more articles that are away from your core mission. And you take articles that are crap, and have more symposium issues. But it’s really all ridiculous.” Most cited law reviews Doyle’s study on the most cited law reviews supports Jarvis’s assertion that the top 100 journals dominate the academic discourse. Since 2002, Doyle has tracked the number of citations to the world’s 1,111 English-language law reviews in both journal articles and cases. The top 100 law reviews — which represent only 9 percent of all publications — garner 49 percent of all the citations. “It is one of those 80-20 rules,” Doyle said. “The vast majority of citations are to the top journals. The top authors and the best articles gravitate to the top journals.” Doyle’s latest ranking, which he unveiled in January, has Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Review and Columbia Law Review at the top. For the most part, the oldest journals at the most prestigious law schools do well in the citation study. But Doyle said other journal editors can improve their standing by focusing on hot topics. “You would have to roll your dice,” Doyle said. “Pick topics that are well-cited. Constitutional law and political topics do very well, and are more cited.” He said The Supreme Court Review is one of the most cited publications, despite publishing very few articles. He advises to avoid topics like bankruptcy and insurance law that fewer authors write about. Hoffheimer, who has talked with thousands of student editors over the years, said the best law journals have similar qualities, including quality content, professional and efficient editing and timely publication. “A great law review is one that publishes a good mix of high-quality academic scholarship by law professors on a range of topics and also publishes thoughtful analysis of cutting-edge legal issues by law students,” Hoffheimer said. Most prestigious authors Jarvis, who issued his first law review rankings in 1997, updated them this past summer. He studied the credentials of more than 7,500 authors, formulating a ranking for the journal based on the prestige of these writers. For example, an article by a U.S. president garnered the journal 1,000 points. A U.S. District judge added 700. And a student essay earned only Summer Sessions in D.C. May 27–June 13, 2008 How will your summer prepare you for practice? GAIN UP TO 6 CREDITS IN 3 WEEKS AND NETWORK WITH LEADING PRACTITIONERS International Arbitration Summer Session Environmental Law Summer Session • Nuts and Bolts of International Commercial Arbitration • Bilateral Investment Treaty Arbitration • How to Conduct an Intl. Arbitration Proceeding • International Arbitration and Choice-of-Law Issues • Salient Issues in ICC Arbitration • Arbitraje Comercial Internacional (available only in Spanish) www.wcl.american.edu/arbitration • Climate Change and Emissions Trading • Environmental Law & the U.S. Congress • Environmental Advocacy • International Law of Biodiversity • Trade & the Environment in the Americas • Intl. Institutions and Environmental Protection • Environmental Compliance and Enforcement www.wcl.american.edu/environment/summer E-mail: summer@wcl.american.edu • Phone: 202.274.4321 EO/AA University and Employer 75 points. The results were to be expected – the top three law journals were Yale Law Review, Harvard Law Review and Columbia Law Review. Yale earned 553 points. The lowest scoring journal was Western State with only 140 points. Critics have slammed Jarvis’ rankings. Some say their methods of judging a contributor’s prestige are silly. Others argue that the rankings reinforce the belief that an author’s resume is more important than the quality of his or her article. But Jarvis defends his work, saying law review editors picked pieces based on author prominence long before the study was first published. In fact, he got the idea for the study in 1988 when he was a visiting professor at Tulane Law School. A member of the law review ran into his office to tell him they had just snagged a piece from a Northwestern professor. “When I asked who the author was and what the piece was about, the student had no idea but was no less excited,” Jarvis said. “So all we did (with our study) was let everyone know which law reviews are playing the game better than others.” Jarvis said law reviews themselves could use a re-write. He and Coleman skim all of the articles during the review process and Jarvis estimated only a dozen or so of the more than 7,500 articles were timely or well written. “Other than author prominence, there really is nothing that distinguishes one law review from another,” he said. “Indeed, if you were to take the covers off two law reviews and hide the names of the authors and their institutional affiliations, no one would ever be able to tell the two issues apart.” That is one of the reasons some law reviews have so little prestige among those in the profession, Jarvis argues. “Nowadays, you could get anything published,” he said. “I could publish my grocery list, some law reviews are so desperate. The reality is [law school] deans should come out against so many law reviews and the number of times they publish.” The proliferation of law journals also has watered down their prestige, Jarvis said. “Many schools won’t have just one. They have five or six. That’s because they’re relatively cheap to operate and some people believe working on any law review will enhance a student’s job prospects,” Jarvis said. “These days, you look with great suspicion on a student without a journal on 26 THE NATIONAL JURIST February 2008 http://www.wcl.american.edu/arbitration http://www.wcl.american.edu/environment/summer http://www.wcl.american.edu/arbitration http://www.wcl.american.edu/arbitration
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