Planned New Faculty-Supervised Independent Law Journal

Prof. Paul Robinson (Penn), a top criminal law scholar, is leading this project, and I think it's an excellent idea. I think we should have more faculty-supervised law journals, though I think there's also merit in student-edited law journals—having a mix of editorial structures may be better than having all be one or all be the other. (Indeed, the structure of this journal looks like it would be different from that of some other faculty-run journals, such as our Journal of Free Speech Law, but there too I think it's good to have different journals experimenting with different models.)

In any event, the Independent Law Journal is still in its planning stages, but if you're a law professor, legal scholar, or judge who supports the ILJ's mission, please get in touch with the ILJ folks. Here's the Journal's announcement, from Prof. Robinson:

Help Us Improve Publishing in Legal Academia

Legal academia is unique among academic fields in that publishing is largely controlled by graduate students through the law review system. While this saves faculty time, it also leads to numerous downsides when third-year law students guide scholarship in topics they barely know. Students on law review tend to be both less knowledgeable and more ideologically extreme than their professors. The result is a system that struggles to recognize good scholarship and penalizes pieces that differ from the current academic mainstream. Nobody benefits when free debate is suppressed, publications are siloed by ideology, and editors making publishing decisions simply don't know enough to determine an article's contribution to the literature.

To help foster high-quality publishing and free and robust debate in legal academia, a number of law professors from top schools are working together to start a new publication—the Independent Law Journal. All articles published in the Journal will be peer-approved by a faculty board, but student staff will still handle most of the Journal's operations and will collaborate with faculty in initial article selection. The Journal's mission statement is as follows:

The Independent Law Journal (ILJ) is a forum for independent-minded law professors, students, and professionals to publish scholarly articles, including pieces that conflict with current academic mainstream thought. The Journal is committed to free speech, freedom from ideological discrimination, and fostering robust scholarly debate across a wide range of viewpoints. In keeping with this mission, the Journal is overseen by a board of distinguished and ideologically varied legal scholars. It is staffed by independent-minded law students drawn from America's top law schools and selected for their academic excellence. As a nationwide scholar-led, peer-approved, and student-staffed journal, the Independent Law Journal brings together current and future legal experts to publish groundbreaking ideas. The Journal aims to provide a space for conversation across the ideological spectrum and believes that progress is often made through disagreement and that truth often emerges from debate.

It is worth stressing that the ILJ is not a conservative journal (of which there are already several) but a non-partisan one committed to publishing equally from left, right, and center. Nobody benefits from groupthink, and the Journal will work hard to prevent itself from becoming an echo chamber.

We are currently enlisting public supporters for the ILJ to give it maximum credibility and reach in legal academia. We are encouraged by the support we have received so far from many prominent legal scholars who span the ideological spectrum (including support from this blog's own Eugene Volokh). If you are a law professor, legal scholar, or judge who supports the ILJ's mission, we would love to list you as a public supporter (the time commitment is zero). And even if you don't fall into one of those categories, we still value your support and hope you will spread the word about the ILJ and keep it in mind if you are ever publishing a piece of legal scholarship. Our primary faculty contact for supporters is Paul H. Robinson ([e-mail]).

You can find more details about how the ILJ will operate on our (developing) website here. Support, suggestions, and constructive criticism are all welcome. If you value high-quality scholarship, free and robust debate, or think the law review system needs improvement in other ways, we hope you will join us in making this new journal a success.

Comments

[Martinned2]

Why not go whole hog and leave the students out of it entirely?

[Dan Schiavetta]

I used to be a law review editor and let me tell you, if law reviews are to be taken seriously, they can't be edited or supervised by students. Few of us knew what we were talking about.

Law professors who have never been practicing lawyers aren't that great, either. But I'd take the one over the other.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Few of us knew what we were talking about."
In your case, nothing has changed.

[Bob from Ohio]

zing

[questioner7]

As a scientist, letting students decide which professors' papers get published makes no sense. What's the rationale for doing it this way?

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

I was a little surprised by this too.

[bernard11]

Makes it easier to get stuff published?

[Dan Schiavetta]

There’s something to that. It’s easier to fool a 3L editor than it is to fool someone who’s been around the block a few times.

I have to add that the law review world is part of the law school world and as such is disconnected to what happens outside. Two examples. When I was a law review editor there were a lot of articles about Critical Legal Studies (in particular the “femcrits”). This had no effect at all on how actual disputes and legislation play out. The same with Law & Economics.

[bernard11]

One thing I wonder about is whether faculty submit articles to their own school's law review to get favorable treatment, or whether this is considered not cricket.

When I was in graduate school - finance and economics - it was assumed that getting a paper published was a 2-3 year process, so it was a good idea to get started on serious research ASAP. Does that hold with law reviews?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Our law review did publish articles from our faculty (and of course “comments” from students). Those at other schools probably assumed these articles got special treatment which would make them less persuasive.

As far as lead time, with only a few exceptions (like the influential 1936 article on “The Reliance Interest”, a book in itself), a good law review article can be knocked out in a couple of months. It would have to be — otherwise some new legal development would force you to do a rewrite.

[Area Man]

I've long thought that student-led journals are odd, especially since the journals have so much influence in the legal community. But I think it's good to still let the students participate because many of them will soon be law clerks and appellate attorneys, and a journal is a good place to hone research and writing skills. So this seems like a good setup for improving legal scholarship while still getting students skills they'll soon use. In essence, the students will be doing a type of clerkship, only in law school rather than in a judicial chambers.

Related side note: I don't see the point of having clerkships with only new or nearly new attorneys. The best setup is when there's a long-term clerk(s) who, along with the judge, oversees and develops the new-attorney clerk(s). It's especially weird to me that someone can be only two or three years out of law school and clerking at the Supreme Court. That's especially where you'd want a long-term clerk(s) for each Justice. Again, don't get rid of the new-attorney clerks, but just pair them with experienced clerks. I understand SCOTUS clerks are usually high-performing people, but still, they're relatively new to the law yet helping influence cases that might last for centuries.

[CJColucci]

The average graduate from an elite law school is more qualified to sit on the Supreme Court than to practice in Traffic Court.

I remember a federal district judge who had one long-term law clerk, a well-regarded practitioner who had health problems precluding active litigation practice, and a rotating cast of kids. Seemed to work well for him.

Some years after his retirement, a judge with the same last name and a first name beginning with the same uncommon first letter (a V) was named to the bench. When I had a case before the new guy, my muscle memory kept typing the other judge's name. He told me he got letters like that all the time. Probably not so much now.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

>The Independent Law Journal (ILJ) is a forum for independent-minded law professors, students, and professionals

What about highly respected legal blog commenters? Especially someone with stellar credentials, like moi?

[Thought about __ all my life]

Sonds terrible !!! Lowest common denominator scholarship: totally secular, political to the hilt, bullied by the pushiest of an already pushy profession. Sounds terrible.

[Burkhard]

"Legal academia is unique among academic fields" There is a "in the US" missing in that sentence - international and foreign law journals have been following the lead of the natural sciences for ages, and use both professional editors and peer review.

This brings me to the second point, an underlying false dichotomy - our very own SCRIPted https://journals.ed.ac.uk/script-ed/index e.g. has always been student-edited, but the articles are double blind peer reviewed by established academics. Gives the students a great experience liaising with them, and in case of disagreements between the reviewers, and only then, exercising editorial judgement.