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Friday, March 27, 2009
Some thoughts on the timing of the spring submission process for law reviews
It occurs to me that there doesn't really seem to be a good reason for law reviews to change over their boards in late Feb/early March, as opposed to mid-January. And there's an important advantage to all the players (the students and the profs who bow down to them) if the turnover occurred earlier: namely, it lessens the freneticism of having the expedite madness bump up so intensely against both spring break and, more importantly, exams. Here's my thinking: my sense is that the sweet spot for spring submissions is usually around March 1. Many friends of mine who submitted four weeks ago or more, however, are still in the "game" now, just as law reviews start to think about winding down due to increased student anxiety about upcoming exams. The situation is probably substantially worse for those who submit toward the end of the window, ie, around or after March 15th.
Posted by Administrators on March 27, 2009 at 06:20 PM in Life of Law Schools | Permalink
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Comments
I do not see any value in an extra 4 weeks of cite checking, at least in terms of preparing Articles Editors. I think the fall semester serves two important purposes: (a) allow 3Ls to gain editorial and author experience--the articles editors will have much knowledge to pass on and (b) vettting the 2Ls. The latter may seem crass, but the ability and willingness to perform well at duties like book pull and cite check shows the 3Ls and fellow 2Ls editors who have some of the skills needed to make for a good editorial board member. It may not tell them who is best to pick articles, but it can show you who is really dedicated to the organization, who understands writing/bluebooking, and who generally works well with fellow class members. An extra four weeks may provide some additional insight, but I would think an insufficient amount to overcome the cost to starting the submissions process behind hte eight ball.
Posted by: Anon | Mar 31, 2009 12:33:19 AM
Dan -- Unfortunately, we begin as early as possible, as our fall semester exams take place in January. The slating process starts the week after we return from finals.
Posted by: Anthony Vitarelli | Mar 30, 2009 4:00:35 PM
The journals at the University of Michigan all transitioned earlier this year than last (late January / Early Feb). The Michigan Telecommunications & Technology law Review actually selected the submissions editors for 2009-2010 at the end of fall semester so that they could start working earlier.
Posted by: Jason | Mar 29, 2009 10:29:49 PM
I agree with Managing Board. The cost to me, a former Articles editor, of showing up two weeks early in the summer would have been $6000. That's how much money I made in two weeks of work at my 1L summer job. Additionally, I think it's a bad idea to reward people who are already aggressively pursuing top positions before they've ever done any work and would likely disadvantage women and minorities, while advantaging the kinds of gunners who I think often make very poor articles editors.
Also, while I missed having a Spring Break my 2L year--we met every single day during my Spring Break--it was far better than missing all the class I would have missed if submissions had already died down by Spring Break. I very much liked the current cycle. I didn't have to worry about my editorial board application until the second semester of 2L year. I got the job and had about 1 week to acclimate, then it was nonstop including over Spring Break, which was actually the most convenient time of the semester, and then wound down just in time for me to cram in all the reading for the classes I hadn't prepared for since February.
Posted by: Anon | Mar 29, 2009 8:52:17 AM
Two weeks in the summer is not like four weeks in February if those two summer weeks come at the expense of a law firm summer program, useful internship, etc. So I'm not sure signaling would be worth the cost in such instances.
Nothing in law school or law review adequately prepares students for selecting articles. Cite-checking is as good as anything else, since it at least gets the students involved with articles and helps them identify which ones they can publish without feeling compelled to rewrite. Isn't that what it's all about?
Posted by: Managing Board | Mar 28, 2009 3:24:07 PM
These are helpful comments, all, so thanks. It does seem as if there's a diversity of practices regarding when new editors come aboard and what the selection process is for them. I had assumed that at most of the top 20 or so, they followed the practice I was used to: selection at the beginning of the summer following 1L year, immersion for six months (August-January) and then have the new board start selecting articles by end of January or early Feb. The 3L's can be of assistance in mentoring the first six months and selecting articles for the second half of the volume.
In any event, I'm not sure why shaving 4 weeks off the gap between the fall and spring cycles is such a big deal from the law prof perspective. People can adjust to it, and importantly it still allows prawfs to finish writing during break and then having informal peer review during January. TJ's concern is really about what marginal difference it makes to have a 2L with 4 more weeks experience before being selected for articles committee. My sense is that the experience a 2L has during the fall regarding cite-checking competence is not highly co-related with the skill/diligence of ferreting out interesting articles to read and publish. You could also make it up by having those who are potentially interested in becoming articles editors be required to show up 2 weeks early in the summer--that will serve as a useful signaling device too, and 2 weeks of law review work in the late summer is at least as equivalent to 4 weeks of law review work in February.
In sum, I think b/c spring break at most schools falls in March and panic for exams usually sets in before mid-April, it would be better if the submissions cycle window opened up late Jan or early Feb, instead of late Feb or early March.
Posted by: Dan Markel | Mar 28, 2009 1:54:17 PM
I'm an outgoing articles editor and wasn't in place to begin submission review until early March. As a top-30 journal this put our articles board behind the proverbial 8-ball. At least for our law review the height of submission season begins the second week of February, so we had already lost some really great articles to lower ranked journals simply because we were not in place and the expedites had expired. This was just unacceptable in our eyes. We were very pleased with the articles we did offer on and think in the end that we put together an excellent 2009 volume, but missing out on articles simply because we weren't in place did not seem justifiable.
Our law review elects board members, thus student note performance is only factored in by the experience of the note editors working with particular students. The final product is not reviewed, and does not play any cognizable role in the board selection process, which I think is correct. Our law review membership is based on a write-on competition, thus everyone has show an ability to write. But that ability on its own will not translate into a competent and diligent board member.
Based on those two things, my articles board advocated for elections in January or early February at the latest. We don't officially bow out until 4/15, but our new articles board was in place and ready for the spring submission process by the first week of February. We also set up a mentoring program, where each old articles board member was placed with a new member, to help guide them through the submissions process and also introduce them to the editing process at our journal. We gave them a lot of freedom to determine the content of their 2010 volume, thus taking the mentor relationship seriously, but provided advice to the new articles editors for the plethora of questions that plague new editors during submissions--about expedites, approaching faculty, assessing cover letters/CVs, etc.
I think on the whole, the submissions process has gone much more smoothly, and although articles have been lost, it has not be due to our oversight.
Posted by: Anon | Mar 28, 2009 11:47:05 AM
Not only the student notes. Turning over the Board in January means that you are promoting 2L staffers who have had all of five months of law review experience. This causes two problems. (1) inadequate time to evaluate their performance, and (2) inadequate manpower to finish the grunt work for the spring and summer issues. If all the 2Ls becomes editors in January, who is going to do the citechecks? Keep in mind also that the staffers who do not make Board are likely to see their motivation and work quality plummet.
Posted by: TJ | Mar 28, 2009 3:50:47 AM
In addition to what Anon & Vladimir say, I wonder how much it matters given the relatively low number of students involved. At most journals, the only folks who vote on articles are the handful of articles editors: They know when they sign up that they'll have no life for a few weeks as part of their job.
Posted by: Orin Kerr | Mar 28, 2009 1:44:34 AM
Many law reviews select boards based on the quality of the draft comments that the student-candidates write. Those comments are written in the fall and are due, typically, after Winter Break. It would be hard to have a selection process any earlier, unless the comment writing process were to be abandoned, at least at such schools.
Posted by: Vladimir | Mar 28, 2009 1:13:43 AM
Turning over law review boards earlier than they currently turn over is impractical given constraints on the student calendar. Turning over the law review board in mid-January would necessitate selecting the board in December given that most schools let out for winter break in mid-December and do not return for spring semester classes until around January 10. I don't think too many student editors--particularly those who are trying out for less time-intensive positions--would be thrilled about having to go through the selection process, which can be quite time consuming, at precisely the time they are taking their fall exams.
In my law review days, board elections began the second week of spring semester (the second rather than the first because the first week of the semester was usually occupied with scheduling nightmares). We worked as expeditiously as possible but still could not finish before mid-February.
Posted by: Anon | Mar 28, 2009 12:23:59 AM
Just as I predicted.
(Also, this would result in a significantly shorter time between windows in the fall, which would have side-effects you haven't entirely considered.
Posted by: david hoffman | Mar 27, 2009 7:53:59 PM
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