Law Review Rankings As Proxies For Quality

Law review rankings and Social Science Research Network downloads have been considered proxies for quality of scholarship.  So, let’s carry that to its logical conclusion in light of an application for a Summer Research Stipend.  Links are to articles that add irony or humor.

To: Associate Dean for Research, LawProfBlawg School of Law

From: Eager Faculty Scholar

Thank you for the opportunity to apply for a summer research grant for 2018.  I have enclosed my proposal in a separate attachment, but am writing to clarify my eligibility for a 2018 research grant in lieu of my progress on the research project you graciously funded last summer.  I recognize that the faculty recently voted that all prior funded summer research must be published or at least accepted for publication in order to apply for any new grants.  I hope you will recognize the exceptional circumstances that have prevented me from complying with this rule.

At 12:01 AM on February 5, I submitted the work to the 73 top-50 general law reviews, as determined by the U.S. News rankings of their home schools, the law review rankings compiled by Washington & Lee, consultation of the I Ching, and analysis of several Reddit subthreads.  While technically, no journal has accepted the manuscript thus far, I have received the following laudits and kudos that lead me to think that if I submit to another 40-50 law reviews an actual acceptance eventually will be forthcoming.

A true consensus top 10-law review expressed great interest, submitted the manuscript to outside peer review from a scholar who wrote a glowing evaluation, and then took the piece to the editorial board.   Sadly, they voted down my article in favor of the most recent article by Cass Sunstein and another piece called “A Hegelian Dialectic of Predatory Pricing in EU Competition Law.”  By the way, would this make me eligible for consideration of the publication bonus for a top 10 placement?  I do write for joy, but I need the money.

While there has been radio silence from over 50 of the journals (including two of which, from checking “ExpressO” and “Scholastica,” apparently  are still carefully considering a manuscript of mine from 2015), I remain encouraged by the excellent reactions I have received thus far.  Apparently only “space limitations” prevented the journal of my alma mater and several similarly ranked reviews from accepting the manuscript, but uniformly they all nonetheless hope I will “think of them when next deciding where to publish.”  High praise indeed.

At least five other top-20 law reviews “carefully considered” the work, praised the piece as “high quality,” and also encouraged me to submit my future work.  I am honored that they would take the time to read my work and thoughtfully respond in this manner in an individualized email less than 24 hours after receiving the piece electronically.  Yet another law review (whose home school appears to bounce between 40 places in the rankings depending on the year) described it as a “thoughtful and interesting piece,” despite receiving thousands of submissions this cycle.  Still others “enjoyed reading” the manuscript.

Two responses particularly stand out.  One law review referred to the manuscript as “excellent scholarship” and “looks forward to my next submission.”  Another found my work “well-researched and compelling” and included an attachment of what appears to be a .gif of a single teardrop slowly falling to the ground.

As you know, this is a substantial improvement from past years, where you questioned whether online publication with a foreign language review where I was unable to verify the translation counted for this purpose or whether their acceptance policy qualified as unethical “play for pay.”  I appreciate you letting that one slide.  In fairness to me, I did try to expedite from that journal to a higher-ranked U.S. journal.

Similarly, I appreciate your willingness to “agree to disagree” about the 800-word book review note I published in 2014 (in the peer-review journal where I am listed on the masthead as a member of the editorial board).  That was still a lengthy project given the two-volume treatise I had to skim in order to prepare the review.

Of course, other journals were less encouraging.  For example, I am less clear how one journal knew to reject the piece prior to submission.  Plus their reference to a restraining order seemed entirely unnecessary as all of my phone calls to them occurred well before midnight.

So while I remain undaunted, can you clarify exactly what you mean by “acceptance” and “journal,” so I can proceed accordingly?  Perhaps this entire exercise is unnecessary, if you are willing to count a 1,200 word anonymous blog post in Above the Law where I incorporated several of the points from the thesis of this year’s work.  As in past years, I am not able to provide a copy of that post since that would defeat the purpose of anonymous posting as well as violate academic freedom (see the more detailed discussion of this issue in my annual report to the dean the past several years).

I understand you have already invested much into my scholarship.  The Scholastica submissions alone have cost the school $2,500.  In the spirit of compromise, I would be willing to post the abstract of the manuscript on SSRN where it would be “published” on up to 12 e-journals.  I understand the full purpose of this exercise is to assure that our school’s stature is elevated, as well as my own. Please advise.

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TempDean is an anonymous professor and current or former interim administrator at a top-100 law school.  Email him care of [email protected] if you must.

LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top-100 law school. You can see more of his musings here.  He is way funnier on social media, he claims.  Please follow him on Twitter (@lawprofblawg) or Facebook. Email him at [email protected].