Commenting on Commenting

I was a commentator at a really great conference last week at GW law school.  The conference explored a variety of issues relating to software and business methods patents, with wide variety of views.  I commented on three interesting papers relating to whether business methods should be patentable subject matter - the papers approached the question from very different angles.  I recently published an article on this topic in the Tennessee Law Review, so this was a good panel for me to comment on. I really enjoyed the experience and learned a lot.

But that's not the point of this post.  I wanted to write a little bit about the commenting process.  This is the second time I've been a commentator.  I've been to other conferences that had commentators, but I get the sense that few conferences use them - likely for time reasons.

So why have commentators?  What do conference participants get? How about commentators? More after the jump...

There is probably some long history about commenting from other fields that has been extended to the law discipline.  I can imagine that commentators would be important in any empirical field, because presentations of data are necessarily opaque; a commentator can comment on the quality of data, the choice of analytical methods, and concerns about conclusions one might draw from the results. If there is such a history, I don't know about it, but maybe a reader can comment. 

So, I look at commentating in law conferences ahistorically, and I think that many of my speculated rationales apply to legal scholarship.  Comments on empirical legal scholarship would have the same benefits as any other empirical field (and perhaps more, if you're skeptical about empirical legal scholarship).  But what about theoretical work?  I think one might want commentators here, too, to frame arguments within a broader literature, point out potential theoretical flaws, and present alternative viewpoints.  If the commentator is in the relevant industry rather than academia, the commentator can also bring "real world" perspective to the various projects.

So, why have commentators rather than rely on the Q&A period after the presentations?  I can think of a few reasons.  First - and I know this is a shock - presenters tend to use more than their alotted time, squeezing out Q&A time.  Commenting time is built into the schedule, and you get feedback no matter how far behind you get.  Second, on panels with multiple speakers you might not get Q&A about all topics, so the commentator can make sure each paper gets attention.  Third, and related, the commentator has read the paper while the audience often has not.  This allows the commentator to address important points that might not have been presented and to head off obvious questions answered in the paper.  This leads to Fourth - another shocker - questions and comments are often much longer than their probative value.  Commenting gets to the point, with short comments that might take several minutes to ask in question form.

From these points, the value to the participants of the conference becomes relatively clear.  The presenters get someone who commits to reading the work in providing thoughtful commentary.  That could be done privately, I suppose, but it's a lot harder to get people to do a thorough job if they aren't presenting. This conference is a case in point.  I had already downloaded one of the articles from SSRN and skimmed it (and even sent a brief note to the author), but my commentating duties caused me to read the article carefully and keep detailed notes that I shared with the author.

The audience gets to hear some (hopefully cogent) thoughts about the works presented, which hopefully also focuses the Q&A.  I frankly wonder whether commentating is as useful for the audience as for the presenters.  I was split 50/50 on the comments I heard from others. All were good, but only some comments really illuminated the topics at hand (more on that below with commentating style).  I guess you can't always bat 1.000.

So what does the commentator get from all this?  I can tell you that it is a lot of work.  You often get the papers last minute, if at all.  The first paper I commented on was essentially a book, and the three articles I read for last week were substantial. Like most academics, I spent a lot of time thinking about the issues not only for the pursuit of knowledge, but also so that I wouldn't look like an idiot.  Perhaps the two goals are one and the same.

There are upsides, though.  The first is public visibility - I had been an academic for about 2 months before I got invited to the first one - based on a paper I published nearly a year earlier.  There was no way that I would get invited to present the paper, but commenting allowed my to get some visibility for that paper.  Indeed, an expanded version of the comments were just published as a very short essay.  Though few have downloaded it (nod, wink - show me some SSRN love), I think it makes some really good points that will add to the literature.

In short, you can't get invited to present at every conference, so commenting is a good way to go, present, meet people, see friends and colleagues, and learn without doing so.  If the conference can pay your way, so much the better.

Another benefit to the commentator is genuine learning.  I learned a lot about alternative theories about the way I see the world in reading all of the papers (some of which I might not have otherwise read), and one of them formed the basis for a portion of a book chapter I recently wrote.  I would not have had such a detailed knowledge of the theory if I hadn't been a commentator.

One last point about commenting style - I think how people comment varies greatly.  The industry folks I've seen tend to focus on whether or not the theories presented in the papers are reflected "on the ground," though some give a much academic style feedback.  I think both are really valuable.  Some give pointed feedback to each presenter, which I think works as well, especially in the part about preempting questions. 

For my part, I've tried to coalesce the papers into some broader theme or to make some broader points about the work, such as fitting it in with a broader literature (which just so happens to coincide with my view of the world - go figure). Whether I've succeeded is a matter of taste, I suspect, though you can read my comments and tell me what you think (nod, wink).