The Most Important Law Review Article You’ll Never Read: A Hilarious (in the Footnotes) Yet Serious (in the Text) Discussion of Law Reviews and Law Professors

Abstract

No! Stop! Go back! Reading the abstract is like taking the red pill in the Matrix.

In this article we discuss “the game.” “The game” is the quest for measuring scholarship success using metrics such as law review ranking, citation counts, downloads, and other indicia of scholarship “quality.” We argue that this game is rigged, inherently biased against authors from lower ranked schools, women, minorities, and faculty who teach legal writing, clinical, and library courses. As such, playing “the game” in a Sisyphean effort to achieve external validation is a losing one for all but a few. Instead, we argue that faculty members should reject this entrenched and virulent hierarchy, and focus on the primary purposes of writing, which are to foster innovation in a fashion that is both pleasing to the author and that improves society. We discuss this rigged game, and seek to reframe our academic life to focus on enhancing innovation and discourse. We would start by skipping abstract writing.

Now go back to your life. Don't even think about downloading and reading this. It's too dangerous.

Keywords: rankings, law reviews, scholarship, scholarly impact, social media

JEL Classification: K10, K30, K40, K00