Law Reviews, Again

BooksThe perennial topic of the foibles of legal academic publishing is back in the news, thanks to a recent “Sidebar” column in the New York Times by reporter Adam Liptak. Much of the article rehashes the standard complaints, going all the way back to Fred Rodell’s 1936 jeremiad against law reviews. The news hook is the publication of three recent articles — in law reviews, ironically — that demonstrate that (1) law reviews are biased in favor of home-school professors; (2) the Supreme Court is not citing them as much as it used to; and (3) almost no one, not even law professors, is happy with the current system.

Liptak’s article has unleashed a flurry of mostly critical responses. (See: Baude, Kerr, Leiter, Bodie, Chin, Wasserman, Solove, Magliocca, Pasquale.) I have just two points to add.

1. The Rumsfeldian Zen Acceptance of Law Reviews. One of the most common complaints about legal scholarship, from nearly all quarters, is that it is not peer-reviewed prior to publication. Several of the bloggers I link to above do a good job of arguing why peer review is not an unalloyed good and student-run editorial boards are not all bad. Some even seem to argue that, for legal scholarship at least, forgoing peer review might on balance be better. And I’m sure there are non-legal academics who believe that publishing in non-peer-reviewed law journals is on a par with publishing with a vanity press.

I find it difficult to get excited about either of those arguments.

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Marquette Moot Court Team Success at the Leroy R. Hassell, Sr. National Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition

Please congratulate third-year law students Brittany Kachingwe and Kerri Puig, whose brief took second place at the Leroy R. Hassell, Sr. National Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition in Virginia. The team was advised by Professor Jacob Carpenter and coached by Attorneys Jennifer Severino and Joel Urmanski. Please also congratulate third-year students David Herring and Jessica Shank for their performance in the competition.  They were advised by Professor Susan Bay and coached by Attorneys Nick Cerwin and Chad Wozniak.  Both teams were also coached by third-year student Patrick Leigl. The competition this year included 19 teams.

The issues were 1) whether the President has the authority under the Recess Appointments Clause to make both intra- and inter-recess session appointments, and 2) whether a state action exists where a compulsory fee agreement arises under the National Labor Relations Act.  The United States Supreme Court is deciding the first issue this term.

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Pulitzer Winner Calls for News Reporting Focused on Solutions

Solutions journalism – what’s that? A leading advocate for this approach to news reporting told an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” audience in Eckstein Hall on Wednesday that it was, at the same time, a simple concept and an important change from the historic practices of most news organizations.

“The reigning myth of journalism is that we cover problems, and that’s all we do,” said Tina Rosenberg, co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network. ”The solution to the problem is not our business, someone else will come and take care of that.”

But, she said, “That model has failed. It’s not a good model for helping society learn what it needs to improve itself, which is what the purpose of journalism should be. Our view is that it is a perfectly legitimate part of journalism to cover, in addition to problems, what is going on to respond to those problem.”

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