There are precious few well-ranked English-language general law journals edited and classically peer-reviewed by legal scholars. Our own ABLJ probably is the best "general" one, and actually is so ranked. There is Law and Society, which is topical and by invitation, and some excellent specialized "law and whatever" journals, which may or may not be peer-reviewed by legal scholars but more likely by scholars from other disciplines. And even then the list gets short indeed. Then there are the ABA journals, some of which are excellent but are not peer-reviewed by academic legal scholars.
 
And then there are the top generalist and specialized journals that come out of top law schools. And yes, IMHO they are respected -- in fact, they are, on average (perhaps because of their numbers) the best ranked, best cited, oldest, most prestigious academic law journals. Only a handful of the earlier-mentioned journals are competitive (as, I must say, is the ABLJ). Some of them are among the 5-10 most prestigious English language academic journals in the world in any discipline, and one of the few non-scientific journals that one could so classify. One thinks: Nature, Science, New England Journal of Medicine, Harvard Law Review, and -- lo and behold -- one does not find any of the top journals in any other discipline found in business schools (the Journal of Consumer Behavior? the Journal of the Academy of Management?. Please give me a break.)Historically, a small handful of top law journals have had greatly disproportionate influence on the course of jurisprudence, legal thought, and American history. 
 
So, I think it would be absurd to discount the academic law school-based reviews and journals as not as worthy of respect as journals peer-reviewed by non-academic lawyers. It just does not reflect the realities of the marketplace for ideas; the market probably deems them of higher value.
One might wish or hypothesize that reality is otherwise, but it isn't.
 
Anyway, that's how I see it. Reasonable people can disagree!
 
Ginny
 
 
________________________________

From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk on behalf of Daren Bakst
Sent: Mon 5/4/2009 5:45 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Ranking system for articles--A Rant continued


I'm wondering whether getting published in an ABA-approved law school review is viewed with as much respect among all of you and those hiring and promoting business law faculty as getting something published in a peer-reviewed (by attorneys) journal.

Thanks for any feedback you can provide.

Daren Bakst, J.D. LL.M.
Legal and Regulatory Analyst
John Locke Foundation

Adjunct Professor
Barton College
http://www.barton.edu <http://www.barton.edu/> 


On 5/4/09 5:14 PM, "Miller, Carol J" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:



	Some reinvention of the wheel is inevitable with a new administrator.   However, why do administers in general think that the path to greatness and increasing stature of one's university is paved with journal rankings? Are there any positive ways of convincing a new Dean that going down the ranking path is a bad idea? 
	 
	Three years ago we got a merit system crammed down our throats and applied retroactively the first year.  Things have leveled out with that for the moment on the merit front, especially since there is no merit money (and salaries are frozen this year) - but we still have the mandatory evaluations and rankings.   For that merit effort we created a very generalized categorization of journals.  Now apparently a much more detailed list is imminent.   It is not the existing Faculty Evaluation Committee or a merit committee or research committee that is developing the initial list.  It is an ad hoc committee that the Dean has appointed to set "travel budget" criteria.   It will have a major backdoor impact on merit, tenure ....  We do have a really good finance professor as our department's representative who is open to input from the law faculty.  But the process is apt to be so unnecessarily divisive and uncollegial - and the fight is over a very restricted amount of funds in the current economy.  Why is this pseudo measure of quality deemed to be a "good" idea when even most of the best authors at a university think it is not and it is so harmful to the collegial working environment?
	 
	Carol Miller
	 
	
	From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steve Salbu
	Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 1:01 PM
	To: [log in to unmask]
	Subject: Ranking system for articles--A Rant, apologies in advance
	
	 
	  
	

		Having an official list/ranking of journals is one of the worst trends in business schools.  Among the negative effects are (1) bifurcation of articles into "okay" and "not okay" based on a crude proxy; (2) gaming on the part of departments that seek to load their lists with journals that benefit themselves; (3) application of standardized journal ranking processes across very disparate disciplines, and (4) acceptance/encouragement of career decisions made by people who haven't even read the work, but use the publication vehicle as a crude, often inaccurate proxy for research quality.
		We got rid of "The List" two years ago and the sky DIDN'T fall in.  Tenure Committees and Deans need to do their jobs--actually read the work and select the right outside
		 reviewers--and stop looking for facile, easy, poor measures.
		I know this doesn't help anyone who is required to come up with a List.  But it has become one of my bugbears and so I rant whenever the subject comes up.
		 Steve Salbu 
		

	Dean and Stephen P. Zelnak,  Jr. Chair College of Management Georgia Institute of Technology 800 W. Peachtree St., NW Atlanta, GA  30308-0520