Seven
posted by Dave Hoffman
That’s the number of times that the Journal of Legal Studies has been cited in cases since 2001, according to the newly updated W&L Journal Rankings. Its overall combined rank is 54th (tied with newcomer JELS); and its rank by case citations is tied for 269th.
For those who are disposed to think that legal scholarship’s distance from practical use is a problem, this particular result will be a congenial datapoint in opposition to technical scholarship in peer-reviewed journals. My guess as to the cause: for the most part, JLS isn’t written by law professors these days, and, as a consequence, the language and conclusions of the articles it publishes don’t resonate with lawyers or judges. I personally am not particularly troubled by the result — I think of JLS as a place where folks can engage is fierce theory, unencumbered by literature review or attenuated explanation. But I do think that the relative dearth of citation to the journal by judges — and by other law reviews — is sobering.
January 6, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Posted in: Law School (Law Reviews)
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