Law journals publish lots of leading edge, outstanding research.  They
also publish lots of junk that wouldn't even make it to the "high risk"
revise and resubmit stage in a refereed journal (this is true even of the
leading reviews, particularly when their authors venture into philosophy
which many law faculty like to do these days). The FSU articles appear to be
classic examples of the latter.

    Why don't we just rank pro football teams on the basis of their players'
college football rankings.  That way we don't have to deal with messy things
like playing out seasons and having upsets.

     May all your systems be compliant for the New Year.

    Tom
----- Original Message -----
From: Virginia Maurer (MAN) <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, December 30, 1999 5:29 PM
Subject: Re: Law Journal Rankings


> I just checked out the Florida State articles Frank mentioned. Does
> anyone else find it strange to rank journals based on the prestige of
> the job titles of the authors rather than, say, on the quality or
> usefulness (citation analysis?) of the articles? Does any other
> discipline do this? What incentives does it create for authors and
> journal editors, or for quality in legal publication? Maybe our
> colleagues who criticize law reviews for their lack of blind review and
> peer review have a point.
>