Writing for & Publishing in Law Reviews

Lawprofblawg & Darren Bush, Law Reviews, Citation Counts, and Twitter (Oh My): Behind the Curtains of the Law Professor's Search for Meaning, 50 Loyola Univ. Chi. L. Rev. 327 (2018), [HeinOnline], [SSRN]. "In this article we discuss “the game.” “The game” is the quest for measuring scholarship success using metrics such as law review ranking, citation counts, downloads, and other indicia of scholarship “quality.” We argue that this game is rigged, inherently biased against authors from lower ranked schools, women, minorities, and faculty who teach legal writing, clinical, and library courses."

Eric J. Segall, The Law Review Follies,  50 Loyola Univ. Chi. L. Rev. 385 (2018), [HeinOnline]. Short essay reviews common criticisms of law reviews, makes recommendations.

Symposium on Law Review Best Practices, 30 Thomas M. Cooley Law Review xiii-xvii, 85-266 (2013),  [HeinOnline]. Short articles from law review students from around the country, professors, and librarians, on Leadership, Article Solicitation, Editing, Publishing, Third-Party Relations.

Harry T. Edwards, The Growing Disjunction between Legal Education and the Legal Profession, 91 Mich. L. Rev. 34 (1992)

Fred Rodell, Goodbye to Law Reviews, 23 Va. L. Rev. 38 (1936-37), [HeinOnline]. Famously proclaimed: "There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content." Clicking on HeinOnline's link to citations to this article provides a quick entree to the intervening decades of cranky critiques.

After Karl Llewellyn was the editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, he wrote a pamphlet for the students, The Writing of a Case Note. It’s interesting because it gives a look at an early form of a writing form that’s still the bread and butter of law journals. For more about Karl Llewellyn, see Arthur L. Corbin, A Tribute to Karl Llewellyn, 71 Yale L.J. 806 (1962).