Comments on: It wouldn’t have happened at a law review…

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 22:02:14 +0000

It does happen in student-edited law reviews. See 63 S. Cal. L. Rev. 533 n.387 (“Need cite.”).

By: Joseph Slater

Joseph Slater — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:12:30 +0000

I’m not sure it’s a “revealed preference” as much as “lazyness” or more charitably, “no obvious alternatives” + “folks at elite schools, at least at the margins, benefit from the system and thus don’t have a big incentive to change it.”

And yeah, article selection and copyediting are quite different issues.

By: Joseph Slater

Joseph Slater — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:12:20 +0000

I’m not sure it’s a “revealed preference” as “lazyness” or more charitably, “no obvious alternatives” + “folks at elite schools, at least at the margins, benefit from the system and thus don’t have a big incentive to change it.”

And yeah, article selection and copyediting are quite different issues.

By: wow

wow — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 20:30:12 +0000

I hope you aren’t seriously suggesting that competent article selection and refereeing are less important than making sure the paper has no typos.

By: Adam Kolber

Adam Kolber — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 10:40:25 +0000

I can attest to another story quite like the one Eric references. I opened up the article immediately following mine in a law review and saw that that author had precisely the same education and people to thank as I did! In this case, I wasn’t the victim. But the author following me was probably pretty upset.

By: Eric Goldman

Eric Goldman — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 00:57:08 +0000

Less common, perhaps? Unheard of? No. See http://www.theconglomerate.org/2006/06/law_review_horr.html Eric.

By: anon

anon — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 23:27:12 +0000

Actually, the legal acadamy gives a lot of credit (in deed, though not in word) to student law reviews–we rely on placement as a strong proxy for quality. Everyone complains, but no one does anything about it (like disregard placement). To an economist, that is call a “revealed preference”.