Announcing: The Pocket Part

Speaking of law reviews, and the future of blogging and scholarship, I was just tipped off from Curtis Mahoney, the Yale LJ's EIC, about an exciting development: the launch of www.thepocketpart.org, which is YLJ's new online companion.  It looks like it's going to be a blogazine version of the current issue of the YLJ.  For example, this month they have an "op-ed" length version of the very interesting proposal to "federalize" property rights advanced by Gideon Parchomovsky and my buddy Avi Bell.  Bob Ellickson and Judge Stephen Williams weigh in with responses, and, of course, true to blogazine style, there's an opportunity for the rest of the world to add four cents also -- in fact one of the first comments is by a former student of mine.   Coming attractions include an exchange among John Goldberg, John Vail, and Philip Howard over the constitutional status of tort law in America. 

Having perused the current contents of the Pocket Part, I am impressed with what YLJ has done.  My hope is that this development will spur other mainstream law journals and law schools to follow suit.  For one thing, authors of law review articles will want an opportunity for dialogue about their articles at least in part because they will be excited by the prospect of reducing their likelihood of being the author of one of those "40%" articles that die without citation.  (I guess I better put a call into the Harvard CRCL board now.)  What's more, there's no excuse for other schools to lag, especially now that ChicawgoBlawgo is up and running too.