A point I make in Schools for Misrule: in part through accreditation rules, law schools are artificially pressured to channel faculty energy into published scholarly work, despite evidence that much of it will be little read or consulted [Richard Neumann/NLJ via Paul Caron, Kenneth Anderson, Volokh, Scott Greenfield]
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And “[]43% of law review articles are never cited by anyone.”
I will have to get a copy of your book, and see which schools you are talking about. I teach at a State University law school in a flyover state. After 30 years I make roughly what our best students make first year at our best local law firms, and not much more than starting Assistant Professors professors make at our benchmarks. We are all expected to write. I wrote 5 articles this year (2 not yet placed) , and updated two books. I will receive no benefit for the writing other than modest royalties on the books. Folks who write nothing do just as well. I should also point out that if I assign my books for my courses I have to forfeit the royalties according to a new University policy imposed by highly paid administrators who don’t write. We have not had raises in years (we had an inconsequential bonus several years ago). Our teaching load is greater than the benchmark average. Our faculty is pretty conservative – folks from both parties. I do agree that law review articles go pretty much unread, but I’m not sure how much lawyers and judges read anymore. The idea of allocating a percentage of one’s salary to an article doesn’t make much sense to me. We are required to report a “distribution of effort”, noting a percentage to each of teaching, research and service, but the allocation is meaningless – only required to make administrative work for some Vice-President in charge of such things. In any event, I think the “$100,000 for an article” is bogus. In the world that I inhabit, the money is in Athletics. Did you survey any schools like mine?
I forgot. I turned one of my articles into a CLE – UK CLE “Sex with Clients in 3-D.” Don’t freak! There is no 3-D sex. Just Me in 3-D. We did this for fun in one take with primitive equipment. Is it silly? Yes. Is it salacious? Yes. Will judges and lawyers cite it? Hope so. It is clearly much needed and cutting-edge skills training. Check it out, if you dare! Go to University of Kentucky CLE – then to Self-study (if I may use that expression) multi-media. Then click on the “New 3-D” icon. “It’s good for the money!”
The fact that I am the only one reading your blog and posting comments proves that you are no more relevant than a law review article. 🙂
I read this blog every day.
I liked school very much and remember seeing a cell under a microscope. My friend John made his own telescope and he showed me mercury transiting the Sun. But then there was a guy on MSNBC who complained about a Algebra problem given to his child. He tried to solve it by applying formulas he remembered. Then he showed the answer which fell out immediately after letting x = the cost of a chair. Letting x equal is the whole point of elementary Algebra. I think we overvalue education.
When I taught Mathematics years ago the belief that the average readership of a mathematics article had dropped below two, the number formed by the author and the reviewer.
I suggest CPSIA as a subject worthy of investigation. You can start with the extensive coverage, including numerous comments, from this blog.
Most law review articles are basically useless regurgitations of materials previously written and serve primarily to allow professors to check off the “published articles” requirement in order to attain tenure. Many also serve as thinly-veiled advocacy, usually in favor of liberal causes. I have discovered what appears to be an unwritten rule: the sum of the footnotes in a law review article must equal or exceed the number of pages in the article, squared. In other words, if you write a five page article no law review will print it unless you have at least 25 footnotes. By the way, during my 6 year stint as an appellate judge I NEVER used law reviews as a source.
[…] Annals of legal scholarship: law review article on “planetarian identity formation” [SSRN] Larry Ribstein on the trouble with law reviews [TotM, earlier] […]