Legal News

Law Reviews Get a Bad Review

By Dan Slater

The institution of law reviews has always been a great source of puzzlement to the Law Blog. As a 2L, the sunny afternoons we labored away blue-booking articles were — we’re pretty certain — among the most ill-spent hours of our law-school career. And yet we can’t deny the symbolic importance of law-review membership. Just look at the on-campus interview guide of any non-tier-one law school. Many employers are clear: No law review? No thanks.

So opening up our February issue of The National Jurist we were relieved to discover that these questions plague others, too. The article, entitled “100 Best Law Reviews,” focuses mostly on two methods of ranking reviews. Robert Jarvis, a professor at Nova Southeastern University Law Center, does his ranking based on prominence of the authors. John Doyle, a librarian at Washington & Lee University School of Law, uses number of citations in other articles and judicial opinions as the main metric of importance. Not surprisingly, both methods get you to the same result: the law reviews at Columbia, Harvard and Yale rule the law review roost.

But here’s the commentary that caught our eye: Jarvis said that most law reviews are so desperate that he could publish his grocery list. “The writing in law reviews is atrocious. The question is: Why does this institution continue even if it’s a product no one wants and no one needs?”

Well, why does it continue? Jarvis explains: “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. These days, you look with great suspicion on a student without a journal on their resume.”

Law Blog loyals, two questions for you. First, does law review experience actually make better law students and lawyers, or does membership merely mean that you got good grades as a 1L? Second, do you agree with Professor Jarvis that the importance of law review in the job search process is leading to shoddy scholarship and academic waste?

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 11, 2008 (boomark / email).