Talk:Law review

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 3 April 2020 and 10 June 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kegiordano.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:19, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Excellent Work
This is an excellent work, very use full article. How one can confuse in Law Review Vs. Judicial Review. There are already good number of references and citation the author has given.

How does the picture help?
I fail to see how how the picture of two doors, even though they happen to be of a law review's office, in any way adds to the completeness of this article, any understanding of what a law review is, or what purpose a law review serves. Which is why I'm deleting it, because it's a pointless distraction, and a needless use of space. If you want to share your holiday snaps, use Picasa!! GuelphGryphon98 (talk) 18:46, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

from Vfd
On 19 Feb 2005, this article was nominated for deletion. The result was keep. See Votes for deletion/Law review for a record of the discussion.

Law review = joke in academia
This is a good article but it fails to mention that participation on the law review is very time consuming and often highly irritating. Membership does have, as the article notes, excellent and long lasting benefits.

This should be a section. lots of issues | leave me a message 08:22, 16 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Law reviews are a joke in academia? This is a really big claim and can hardly be supported by a few blog entries by some law profs. --PullUpYourSocks 17:57, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * It's not a very big claim. They are a joke within the study of law, too. They aren't usually peer reviewed, and they don't usually even have a thesis or a thesis related to a legal issue. Snailfacts (talk) 17:34, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Law Review vs. Journal
A solid article but it fails to note the difference between the law review and secondary journals -- even at parts conflating the two. lots of issues | leave me a message 05:49, 9 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Do you mean secondary source? Because a law review is a secondary source. --PullUpYourSocks 17:57, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I believe he means between "the" Law Review (of which each school has one), and other law reviews/law journals put out by law student groups. For example, Harvard has the Harvard Law Review, but other student organizations put out the Harvard Environmental Law Review, Harvard Latino Law Review, Harvard Journal of Women in Law, and so forth. -- BD2412 talk 21:01, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Added to footnote linking to Richard Posner's anti-law review article from 2004. Wl219 05:16, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Why is there a paragraph on Hofstra's "idea" section?
This is not notable at all. Self-aggrandizement, should be deleted.


 * Agreed. - Tarfu92 15:11, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

History Section?
The second half of the section titled 'Law Reviews as academic Journals' seems to be more like the history and maybe the breadth of law reviews. Suggest to separate it out and expand it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Donaldrobertsoniii (talk • contribs) 22:49, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You mean a separate section, not a separate article, yes? bd2412  T 23:40, 22 December 2007 (UTC)


 * correct, I went ahead and moved to to a separate section, as well as separating in another section the content that seemed to discuss the fact and controversy of law reviews being student-run.Donald (talk) 09:58, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Title - Review vs. Journal
While a law review might be a type of journal, the activity is universally known as "Law review". bd2412 T 17:22, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

"Law Journal" is the more general, generic term for scholarly legal publications. (Note that this very article is filed under the Wikipedia category of law journals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Law_journals). At many schools, there are several Law Journals, out of which one will be the general and "flagship" journal, which is often called Law Review. However, if you are on one of the other journals, you can't say "I'm on Law Review," "I do Law Review," or "I made Law Review." But one who has made the Law Review can correctly say that s/he made a law journal. The term "Law Review" therefore can't adequately describe the activity of working on a journal devoted to academic discussion of legal issues.

Quite simply, a Law Review is a type of Law Journal. The following pages are from several of the nation's top law school programs: The list could go on and on, but suffice to say that the vast majority of law school programs with multiple publications refer to those publications as journals. On each of these pages, the "Law Review" for that particular school is listed as one of many Law Journals. The notable exceptions are Yale and Georgetown, who (among many other schools like Duke and Emory), simply call their flagship journal the "Journal" (e.g. the "Yale Law Journal").
 * http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/journals/
 * http://www.law.yale.edu/StudentJournals&Publications.asp
 * http://www.law.columbia.edu/current_student/Law_Journals
 * http://www.law.upenn.edu/academics/journals.html
 * http://www.law.stanford.edu/publications/journals/
 * http://www.law.uchicago.edu/academics/journals.html
 * http://www.law.georgetown.edu/journals/

Other evidence favoring the view that "journal" is the default term for such publications: Visit this site on Washington & Lee's webpage: http://lawlib.wlu.edu/LJ/ This page allows one to sort and rank journals. Using the fields, one can cull the following facts:
 * (1) Out of all legal publications listed, 782 use the term "journal" in their title, while only 440 use the term "review."
 * (2) Out of all student-edited legal publications, 344 use the word "journal," while only 270 use the term "review."

I therefore think that this Wikipedia entry would be more aptly titled "Law Journal," while noting/emphasizing that Law Review is the typical term for the flagship journal at a given law school. Brewsky83 (talk) 19:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brewsky83 (talk • contribs) 19:24, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I see your point, but there's still sort of a dichotomy between law review as a kind of journal and law review as an activity. Perhaps that is best addressed by having two separate articles. bd2412  T 21:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

US Law Only: Title is Misleading
This piece fails to discus any review outside of the US. It should either be re-titled US Law Reviews or re-written to include references to the many many journals and reviews outside of the US. That, or it should be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.250.54 (talk) 16:45, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually it does discuss some journals, but nnone of the leading ones. This piece gives the laughably inaccurate impression that there are very few journals outside of the US. In fact America is the odd one out, everywhere else in the worls academics edit law reviews. The UK (and Germany and France and many other places) have just as many law journals with just as long a pedigree as the US. An expret needs to edit this page properly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.248.218 (talk) 10:06, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Law Review v. Law Journal
Isn't the distinction between Law Review and Law Journal (at least in the US) based on the fact that a Journal is edited by credentialed professionals and its articles are subject to peer-referee by established experts in the field, whereas a Review is edited by students and its articles are not subject to peer-referee? Naaman Brown (talk) 14:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

No, very few american law journals are peer-reviewed (exception: American Journal of International Law). I have been among the editors of one of them and we did all of the selection and editing ourselves. I am now a scholar and sometimes serves as peer-reviewer of non-American law journals. I believe this wikipedia article is deeply flawed. I am not sure whether the big distinction should be between student-edited and professionally edited reviews/journals at all, but if so, it should include a solid part on the professionally edited, peer-reviewed reviews/journals that plays the most important part in legal scholarship in most parts of the world and in many areas of American law as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.208.112.158 (talk) 23:35, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Adding a Journal to Wikipedia
Below there my exchange with Crusio the editor of this section:

Dear Crusio I have tried to edit the wikipedia article regarding law reviews and you keep unediting it. My question is why is in non notable? it is from a University in Italy, published with the University Press (ISBN Code and ISSN codes) and among the authors there are several Judges and distinguished jurists


 * (Crusio)- The journal does not even exist yet, its website states that "issue 0 will soon be published". Have a look at WP:GNG and WP:NJournals. New journals are almost never "notable" (in the Wikipedia sense, this has no bearing on quality or anything like that, only whether the subject of an article has been "noted" in independent reliable sources. --Crusio (talk) 17:12, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately you are incorrect the first issue has been published back in October check the "Current Section" also check the annocements it says it can be downloaded now... I am not sure how this works but is there a way to settle this? I don't see what the problem is from adding 1 review when there are multiple for the other countries.


 * (Crusio) Even with 1 issue published, your new review simply does not meet the notability requirements that I linked to above. --Crusio (talk) 18:29, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry but I don't see why you get to make that call, also why is the Aberdeen Student Law Review, one issue 'notable' and even in the wikipedia sense? This is the first review of it's kind in Italy, Professor Cassese is a Constituional Court Judge and Prof. Conforti is a former European Court of Human Rights Judge. I am new to editing wikipedia but I dont get how one person get's to decide. Is there any other way? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sf156 (talk • contribs) 18:34, 23 May 2011 (UTC) ""


 * Also for the sake of independent reliable sources see: http://eum.unimc.it/news/nasce-la-201crivista-giuridica-degli-studenti http://www.cronachemaceratesi.it/2011/05/17/al-via-il-festival-degli-studenti-con-mostre-concerti-e-spettacoli-teatrali/ http://sfoglia.corriereadriatico.it/Articolo?aId=1159366 that is a newspaper btw http://www.ilrestodelcarlino.it/macerata/cultura/2009/10/22/250937-premi_laureati.shtml same with this one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sf156 (talk • contribs) 19:30, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

What I am asking is to add a piece of factual information to the wikipedia article. I don't see how other Student Reviews are acceptable but this one is not. It has all the formal requirments of a an ufficial law review, including an editorial board and a scientific committee composed by University Professors. If you agree to add this publication please write it here so Crusio can wikipedia certify it. Regards Sf156
 * There's a lot to clean up in the "law review" article and the Aberdeen journal may well be one part of it. I never got around to cleaning it up, just prevent it from deteriorating even further. That other stuff exists is not an argument to add more stuff like that, we call that argument WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Unfortunately, none of the sources you list establish notability, if at all, they are just in-passing mentions of the "Rivista". --Crusio (talk) 20:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi there thanks for your comments. How can I get you to accept the submission? I have provided all evidence possible to establish the existence of a student edited law review in Italy other than the Bocconi one, equally as new (founded the same year) The Review has also been accepted by SSRN (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1812023) and was added to the list of accepted review on the OJS website (http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs-journals). So what can I do to get this published? Sf156 (talk) 21:19, 23 May 2011 (UTC) (ps. sorry about the non signing)
 * What you need (as explained in WP:GNG and WP:NJournals) are independent reliable sources about the journal, or evidence that the journal is included in major selective databases, to establish notability. --Crusio (talk) 21:32, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I assume newspapers and SSRN are not sufficient. Alright, I will see what I can do, in the mean time, in the interest of fairness, please edit the other student law reviews that you don't deem notable. Thank you for your help --Sf156 (talk) 23:06, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Connection between Albany/Columbia predecessor "journals" and modern law reviews
It strikes me as more than a little misleading to describe the Albany Law Review (first published in 1936) as the successor to the Albany Law School Journal (published for one year from 1875 to 1876). Likewise, I doubt anyone would consider the Columbia Law Review (first published in 1901) to have succeeded the Columbia Jurist (published for two years, from 1885 to 1887)--although that's a slightly closer question. It seems fairer to say that while the Albany Law School Journal was simply a historical isolate disconnected from the larger trend, the Jurist helped spark the Harvard Law Review--which in turn spawned a boom in student-edited academic law journals. That boom eventually led to the founding of the Columbia Law Review and, eventually, the Albany Law Review. The current description obscures that historical trend, and moreover implies that the Albany Law School Journal (and worse yet, the Albany Law Review) occupy anything more than a footnote in the history of the law review. (On that last point, I would note that neither the Albany Law School wiki page nor the Albany Law Review wiki page support the existence of any successorship relationship between the Law School Journal and the Law Review). I found this 1996 article from the U Akron Law Review to offer some clarity on the historical arc. I realize that such kibitzing as I've offered isn't particular in the spirit of Wikipedia--but I'd appreciate it if the active editors on this page could correct this error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:37EF:1D90:78B0:6CED:628C:159F (talk) 22:39, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Categorizing peer reviewed or not
It seems we can start based on this list: ; for background, see below. Fgnievinski (talk) 15:40, 22 June 2015 (UTC) - What sort of response are you seeking to this list?  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  16:06, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
 * "The periodicals law librarians deal with on a daily basis are gradually making the shift from non-peer-reviewed to peer-reviewed, though law reviews, particularly in the United States, are slow to make the transition."
 * "The law reviews ... are edited without peer review"
 * "How long has Stanford [Law Review] participated in the peer review program? My understanding is that this is the third year of the program"
 * Editor's Corner: Are Law Reviews Peer-Reviewed?.


 * I'm also not sure what is being proposed, but I'd be hesitant to add an entire section on this or to start maintaining a list of peer-reviewed v. not peer-reviewed journals as a Wikipedia entry. The subject of peer review might merit a sentence or two in the United States subsection, but I'm not aware of evidence that it's a very notable movement within law review publishing and, because most American law reviews are student-edited and have high management turn over, peer review practices may vary both between journals and year-over-year for the same journal.  Peer review is something that gets suggested for American law reviews from time to time, but very few journals I'm familiar with have actually gone ahead with implementing peer review and, as I understand it, those that have, have done so in a manner that does not parallel traditional peer review in the social sciences.  You will note that all of the background articles about this suggested by Fgnievinski are between four and eleven years old, and that the most recent blog related to Stanford Law Review makes clear that, at least at Stanford at that time, the peer reviewers' opinions were not determinative of whether a piece is published and were not provided to the authors.  Sneekypat (talk) 16:18, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Many law reviews are student-edited, where there is a large group (usually several dozen) law students involved in editing/reviewing submissions. I would regard this as a form of "editorial board peer review". The editorial process certainly is very different from a magazine or newspaper. --Randykitty (talk) 16:43, 22 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The function of a student-edited law review's editorial board (while important) is quite different from the kind of peer review being discussed here. Peer review in the sense at issue is when an academic journal is edited by faculty (rather than students) in the field who review submissions and make publication decisions based on their expertise.  Typically, there is also a "revise and resubmit" option to peer review, where the faculty make suggestions for substantive changes to an article prior to the article being accepted, in addition to the more typical law review "accept" or "reject". Sneekypat (talk) 19:05, 22 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm proposing to create a new Category:Peer reviewed law journals and start populating it based on the first link above; and also to create a section in the main article stating that law reviews, especially in the U.S., are not usually peer reviewed. The direct quotations above source the interpretation that student's handling of articles cannot be considered formal peer review. This issue has implications for the very definition of academic journal, as per Talk:Academic journal. Fgnievinski (talk) 17:53, 22 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I am opposed to all of these suggestions. As to the category, I do not think there is an objective way to populate it given how law review editorial boards are generally governed.  More, to the extent that such a category could be created, I think it would probably constitute original research.  It's not as though the first link you provided is an RS with a list based on publicly available criteria.  I'm not saying listing all the law reviews that use peer review (and in a manner that fits the ordinary understanding of peer review) it isn't a worthwhile project.  I'd be personally interested, but I don't think such a category can be reliable enough to belong on Wikipedia at this point it time.


 * As to adding a new section, as I mentioned above, I don't think that is necessary or helpful to the article. To the extent that it merits inclusion, a sentence or two in the American Law Reviews subheadings (2.1, 5.1 or both) seems to me to be sufficient.  For the record, I am only familiar with American law reviews, so to the extent that a proposed new section would also deal with non-US law reviews, I'll bow out. Sneekypat (talk) 19:05, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Slight edit to duties of student members (from a student member)
As a member of the Stanford Law Review, I clarified what is expected of student law review members with a minor edit to that section (clarifying that while some journals expect student members to write notes, others draw from broader submission pools, as our law review does). Wishing you all well. Kegiordano (talk) 22:47, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Copy/paste in Editorial staff: Australia section
This section about Editorial staff in Australia appears to be copied from page 12 of the below book. An excerpt of the book containing the portion that was copied is available at SSRN 3842202. However, the references section is not available online.

I'm honestly not sure what to do; is it okay to blank the section?

―sitting in a fridge &#60;3 coolmato 18:45, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

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Ten d9 a jwa8 119.93.7.0 (talk) 03:23, 14 November 2023 (UTC)