Law review has consumed my soul

I kind of hate to go on about being on law review, because it probably really annoys other law students - either you wanted to be on law review but didn't get on, or you didn't want to be on law review in the first place because you have ABSOLUTELY ZERO INTEREST in law review and what it requires, or you're on law review and you don't need to hear me talking about it. And if you're not a law student, you probably have no idea what I'm even talking about in the first place.

But the thing is, it really has taken over my life at the moment (which makes things very boring for everyone around me who is not on law review with me and therefore able and willing to spend hours discussing the minute details of how exactly we should make it the best law review it can be). My e-mail inbox is continually besieged by messages asking me to confirm submission, expedite review, or withdraw an article (many of the latter two appearing after our journal has already rejected the piece, mind you). I have become far, far too familiar with the ridiculous limitations of bepress (Berkeley Electronic Press. It's the system authors use to submit to law journals. It is WAY BETTER than going through paper submissions, yet there are...well...let's say quirks). And I have spent more time than I would have imagined calling up strangers and offering to publish their work.

Mostly, I continue to be amazed at how DIFFERENT it is to publish in law reviews as opposed to in humanities journals:

• There is a "submission window." Everyone submits their work in late February-March. (There is potentially a second "submission window" in August, too, but I haven't lived through that one yet.) So yes, legal scholars arrange their research plans for the year to get articles done for this particular time.
• You can submit to multiple law reviews at once. How many you submit to is up to you (it's $2 a pop, so it depends how much you want to spend).
• In keeping with the use of rankings to parse the value of different law schools, law reviews are ranked, based on numbers of citations received in the past seven years (there's a strong correlation between USNW ranking and law review ranking, although it's not exact). You know how humanities scholars get into debates about which journal is better to publish in? In law, you know EXACTLY how much "better" one journal is than another. (At least according to Washington & Lee. I still can't figure out HOW they calculate their rankings.)
• Of course, there are a couple hundred general law reviews. I think I could scarcely come up with double-digit's worth of journals to which to submit a medieval history article. So maybe rankings are sort of useful in this case.
• The basic procedure is that everyone submits everywhere, and then when you get an offer of publication from somewhere, you turn round to the journals ranked higher than the one that made you an offer, and ask them to "expedite" their review of your piece so they can decide before the deadline on your first offer is up. This bumps you up to the top of the journal's queue, so that they look at your piece sooner and might still have room to publish it. (Plus, if the offer is from a good journal, that makes you look all the better to the other journals.) If you're really good (and good at working the system), you can leapfrog your way up the ranked journals doing this.
• Our journal has a general policy of not taking longer than a month to review submissions. That's right - a month. You can (and should) have an offer of publication in your hands within a MONTH.
• And, yes, everyone who runs these things are students. I have a year and a half of law school under my belt, and I am picking and choosing legal scholarship. It is perhaps one of the oddest systems I could ever have imagined. 
• The craziest part of the student thing isn't even having us evaluate articles (it's true that there are lots of fields I know nothing about, but a well-written piece stands out, whatever its subject). It's that no one's in their job for more than a year. So just when you've figured out what's working and what's not, you hand everything over the the next year's board. Continuity is VERY limited. (I should add that the board we've taken over from has been incredibly helpful in explaining what it is we do and how, but really, it seems like such a waste of energy to reinvent the wheel every year!)

So, yeah, that's what I'm spending all my time thinking about these days. Interestingly, I now spend so much time on my computer for WORK related purposes (counting law review as work), that when I don't have to, I don't even want to look at the thing. So instead of aimlessly surfing in my spare moments, I've started reading books again. Heck, I even welcome reading for class because it's not. on. the. computer.

(Well, okay, I still aimlessly surf. Just not quite as much.)

Comments

[Z]

I'm not even on the main law journal for my school, and I'm still overwhelmed by the effort required. I'm constantly downloading submissions to my hard drive, uploading them to the server for our submissions readers, entering everything on a spreadsheet, reading submissions, rejecting authors, getting rejected by authors...
And then I sit down and study the bluebook because, for some reason, I still want to be on the main journal next year.

[NB]

Amen, my friend.

And if you don't feel like Sisyphus yet, you will.

[undine]

This is fascinating. I've always wondered how the process works for law review (but was too lazy &/or embarrassed to ask). Thanks.

[Annie Em]

I agree with Undine: this is the most clear description of the law review process I've seen---I feel well taught!

Good luck!

[Amanda]

I'm not on law review, but I work as a research editor/copy editor/Bluebook Queen of the Universe for one of our journals that doesn't have a student staff. I love it, because interviewers like it but they pay me and I don't have the stress my law review friends have, even though we're doing semi-similar work.

Ah, Washington & Lee...I spent an entire week of my summer last year writing up a huge comparison of our journal with every other journal on there in every way possible that they rank them. And I still have no idea how it works! (well, some idea...but it's hardly intuitive!)

[idwsj]

Law review sounds truly dandy. I actually enjoy reading about it. Window into the unknown, and all.

[Melissa]

As an incoming 1L, I appreciate your insight on the 'real' world of Law Review.

[helenesch]

I'm in philosophy and sometimes read law review articles, but I had NO IDEA that the process was so different from how things work in my field. (Actually, reading this makes me think that the system that humanities journals use isn't so bad!) What a pain to have to review so many articles when they're likely to be published elsewhere.... And it seems really bizarre that students are the ones making such important publication decisions.

[just sayin]

Do you have to check citations in the articles? When they cite case law, do you have to check it? Thanks.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

just saying - yup, we check EVERY quote and every citation - we make sure the case law is still good, and we make sure that what they cite says what they say it does. I've had to correct a few quotes already that authors have got wrong. And we make sure that the cite is in proper Bluebook format. (which is a nightmare!)

There's a division of labor, though - the 2Ls do cite-checks, the 3Ls do the other production work. So soon I, personally, won't be doing cite-checks any more.

helenesch - yes, the likelihood of articles going elsewhere is quite annoying, and it definitely affects the degree of attention you give to an article. But there's also an extensive editing process once an article has been accepted, so it's sort of like the acceptance comes at a slightly earlier stage in the writing as compared to humanities publishing.

to those who found the description interesting/useful - thanks! I just kind of wrote it down to get it out of my head, since how law review works is pretty opaque (even after being "on law review" for 6 months). I still don't know how the production process really works, but I will be finding out soon!

Amanda - glad it's not just me who finds the W&L rankings bizarre! It would seem to me you *should* be able to make your criteria clear, but...

NB - yes, definitely Sisyphean! (I was so pleased I'd caught up on expedites, and BOOM, there are even more!)

Z - I can't imagine having done this as a 1L! (At least, I think that's what you're doing.) It's amazing how much more I'm willing to let my other work slide this year from last. Although you're way ahead of me for studying the Bluebook, because every cite-check, I have to reteach myself the format all over again. (Good reason I'm not a production editor...) Of course, your main journal may be tougher to get onto than mine is!