Monday, June 02, 2008
SSRN and The Death of Law Reviews-- Should This Make Me a Sad Panda?
Some of you may have noticed that I have added a link to my SSRN papers to the left. So, what the heck is SSRN?
Depending on who you ask, it is either a pit into which we dump scholarship, a useless enterprise, the future of scholarship, the Deathstar to traditional law reviews, or perhaps all four. In short, it is a site where scholars place their papers for public download. Some schools now require all of their professors to put their work on SSRN. I have only a minority of my work there (8 of 21 published articles/books/book chapters), but at Baylor, Rory Ryan and I are the only professors I am aware of who post there at all.
Citations to SSRN are starting to become more common in both articles and court opinions. It could be that such open-access ventures do kill off law reviews. A scholar can "publish" an article much more easily on SSRN than through traditional law reviews, and many professors resent having students play the role of gatekeepers for their publications. Moreover, many of us suspect that more people read our work in this format than in the printed version. On the other hand, law reviews do a good job generally of copy-editing articles (a benefit I am often sorely in need of), something unavailable through SSRN. Significantly, law reviews are also a part of the educational process, introducing students to the world of scholarship.
Would killing off law reviews through open-access publications be bad or good?
Comments:
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Open access is overrated in academia. Sure law reviews are student-edited, but is the alternative a legal scholarship wikipedia? Seems like over time, and without a quality control mechanism of any kind, SSRN may lose some credibility. Probably only the lower-tier reviews have much to worry about.
I am under the impression that being on the law review is supposed to be something earned through academic ability or writing on. I have no intention of ever doing Law review (nor do I think I'd be offered the oppurtunity); however, I don't see it being at risk if it continues to be seen as a badge of honor and something employers look at.
With regard to SSRN, SSRN may be a positive for people to get themselves in the public eye for ideas that they wouldn't be able to express otherwise.
My opinion is probably of little merit because I have a hatred for academic writing because of many of the History profs at MSU.
With regard to SSRN, SSRN may be a positive for people to get themselves in the public eye for ideas that they wouldn't be able to express otherwise.
My opinion is probably of little merit because I have a hatred for academic writing because of many of the History profs at MSU.
I think that SSRN might serve as a potential stop gap measure between finished product and published product as an easy way for people who want to spread their work. I don't think you'll see the end of law reviews because:
(a) people like seeing their name in print. and there's something about the selectivity that rubs the academic pretensions the right way.
(b) while electronic publishing with SSRN is easy, it's just as easy to mail an article to a law review. because those two things are not mutually exclusive and there is no cost to the professor of doing the latter, it's more that the two will co-exist rather that compete.
(c) if law reviews were abolished, what would law students do with all their free time?
I think in the long run, you'll see law reviews transformed to have more of an online component to them. Some day, law reviews may even be completely electronic. But I think there will always be the concept of a law review in one form or other.
(a) people like seeing their name in print. and there's something about the selectivity that rubs the academic pretensions the right way.
(b) while electronic publishing with SSRN is easy, it's just as easy to mail an article to a law review. because those two things are not mutually exclusive and there is no cost to the professor of doing the latter, it's more that the two will co-exist rather that compete.
(c) if law reviews were abolished, what would law students do with all their free time?
I think in the long run, you'll see law reviews transformed to have more of an online component to them. Some day, law reviews may even be completely electronic. But I think there will always be the concept of a law review in one form or other.
I think that the problem people see with these new, online forms of scholarship is the "anyone can play for free!" nature of them. Invariably, exclusivism is associated with quality in our society. Being part of the "elect" or "elite" is seen as automatically conferring at least some degree of authority. Now, while peer review and publication are good factors for considering whether something ought to be authoritative, the case of Alan Sokal proved that it's possible to fool even an academic journal. And of course, publication does not guarantee correctness -- elsewise, why would we have such epic battles between authors in point-counterpoint style articles, or my favorite: the "response" pieces in philosophy journals. Nothing is more rough and tumble than two philosophers at each other's throats. Like rabid dingoes.
I think that, ultimately, the basis for whether a citation is authoritative has less to do with the source cited to than the material cited. Citing to Supreme Court dicta might be seen as authoritative, but it doesn't take precedence over appellate court binding authority. Look for quality in the work cited, not the place wherein the cited work appears.
And really, who is taking citations at face value? That's the first rule any high school debater learns. I once faced opponents who pulled their citations out of a cheesy science fiction novel. They brazenly listed it in the title to their evidence. A less careful eye would have just assumed they had all this great evidence about how evil a government program really was. Turns out it was some paranoid fantasy.
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I think that, ultimately, the basis for whether a citation is authoritative has less to do with the source cited to than the material cited. Citing to Supreme Court dicta might be seen as authoritative, but it doesn't take precedence over appellate court binding authority. Look for quality in the work cited, not the place wherein the cited work appears.
And really, who is taking citations at face value? That's the first rule any high school debater learns. I once faced opponents who pulled their citations out of a cheesy science fiction novel. They brazenly listed it in the title to their evidence. A less careful eye would have just assumed they had all this great evidence about how evil a government program really was. Turns out it was some paranoid fantasy.
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