Rinascimento Italiano March 18, 2009
Posted by luigi in Interesting Initiatives, Miscellaneous.add a comment
“Rinascimento Italiano” means Italian Renaissance.
When one thinks of the Italian academic panorama, one may often associate it with low-ranked Universities and nonexistent research institutes. With the exploitation of doctoral students and the subordination of learners to learneds.
This, however, seems to be changing. And, what’s interesting, this change seems not to be occurring through some revolutionary upheaval. But merely through mutual cooperation between generations of people that – having walked for years in a world they believe in – that of University, feel it as their duty to improve it.
Happily, there seems to be a new wave of attention to students as producers of content, and not merely as consumers thereof. While this may seem as just another praise of the initiative that I contributed to create (with the help of many fellow students and understanding professors), now going under the name of Bocconi School of Law Student-Edited Papers, it is not.
Of course, we do have this innovative initiative in the legal publishing field. But that’s not all and, what’s most to rejoice about, that’s not it.
My attention has, instead, been captured by University Web Radios. My home University, Bocconi, has one, Radio Bocconi. But it’s not the only one. I am, in fact, also a keen listener of Radio 110, the Web Radio of Turin University.
While such initiatives are not immediately law-related, they nonetheless show that something is changing. When students do things, and they do them with quality, they are claiming their intellectual dignity vis-à-vis the rest of society and the academic world. Be it in the field of law or of, say, communications more generally (as it often is with respect to web radios).
Finally, Italy has witnessed, in the last few years, the birth of several excellence research institutes that aim to revert the trend of intellectual emigration and to attract foreign postgraduates. The pioneering example is the European University Institute in Florence (which, by the way, also publishes a law journal edited by postgrads, the European Journal of Legal Studies). But – happily – it has not remained the only one for long. There are at least two other I know of: the IMT Institute for Advanced Studies of Lucca and the International University College of Turin. The latter, in particular, was founded by one of the most dynamic Italian comparative legal scholars, Ugo Mattei, and further lists Guido Calabresi and Duncan Kennedy among its Distinguished Visiting Professors!
With an international faculty and student body, similar institutes strive to bring Italy up to speed with foreign competing institutions.
In other words, something is changing in the Italian academic panorama. And it is for good.
————
Quando si pensa al panorama accademico italiano, vengono subito in mente università sovraffollate e istituti di ricerca malfunzionanti. Storie di baroni e di schiavi e quell’aria asfissiante, che sa di subordinazione dei discenti ai docenti.
Sembra, tuttavia, che qualcosa stia cambiando. E, ciò che é più interessante, é che questo cambiamento non sta avvenendo tramite una qualche forma di rivoluzione. Ma semplicemente attraverso un rinnovato spirito di cooperazione tra diverse generazioni, divise sì da molte cose, ma accomunate dalla voglia di far rifiorire quel mondo unico che é l’Università, nei cui corridoi hanno entrambe camminato, seppur per periodi di diversa lunghezza.
Ciò che é più bello, é che sembra esservi una nuova onda di attenzione agli studenti in qualità di produttori di contenuti, e non solo di consumatori. Questa potrà sembrare, ai lettori più assidui di Edublawg, l’ennesimo elogio del progetto che (con alcuni compagni ed alcuni entusiasti professori) ho avuto modo di contribuire a creare, attualmente denominato Bocconi School of Law Student-Edited Papers. Non é, tuttavia, questo il punto di questo post.
Sicuramente, adesso abbiamo – in Italia – un’ulteriore iniziativa innovatva nel campo editoriale giuridico. Ma – e ciò é quanto consente di rallegrarsi – non é l’unico fiore primaverile che questo sole di marzo scopre soto i freddi invernali.
La mia attenzione é stata, infatti, catturata dalle web radio universitarie. La mia università di appartenenza, la Bocconi, ne ha una: Radio Bocconi. Ma non é l’unica. Io sono, infatti, anche un avido ascoltatore di Radio 110, la Web Radio dell’ateneo torinese. La cosa che mi rallegra di più, é che a Oxford non ci hanno ancora pensato!
Benché simili iniziative non siano direttamente collegate all’ambito giuridico, sono – tuttavia – sintomi di un cambiamento. Quando gli studenti si cimentano in nuovi progetti, e lo fanno con qualità, lanciano un segnale più forte di mille proteste: rivendicano la loro autonomia intellettuale di fronte al mondo accademico e al resto della società in generale. Questo tanto nel campo giuridico che, per sempio, in quello della scienza delle comunicazioni (al quale generalmente possono essere ricondotti i progetti radiofonici).
Infine, l’Italia sembra avere assistito, negli ultimi anni, allo sbocciare di diversi istituti di ricerca di eccellenza, che sembrano aver dichiarato guerra al solito trend di esportazione di cervelli, mirando ad attrarre studenti postgraduate stranieri. La strada sembra essere stata aperta dall’ Istituto Universitario Europeo di Firenze (che, tra l’altro, pubblica anche una rivista giuridica edita dai propri studenti postgraduate, lo European Journal of Legal Studies). Ciò che é ancora più sorprendente, é che questo non é rimasto l’unico esempio. Ce ne sono, infatti, almeno altri due di cui io sia a conoscenza: l’IMT Institute for Advanced Studies di Lucca e lo International University College di Torino. Quest’ultimo, in particolare, é stato fondato da uno dei più dinamici studiosi italiani di diritto comparato, Ugo Mattei, e può annoverare “pezzi da novanta” come Guido Calabresi e Duncan Kennedy tra i suoi Distinguished Visiting Professors!
Con un corpo docenti e studenti variegato e multinazionale, questi istituti lottano per riportare l’Italia in corsa nella competizione con istituzioni straniere.
In altre parole, mi sembra che qualcosa si stia muovendo nel panorama accademico italiano. E mi sento di dire che il cambiamento sembra essere in meglio.
Interactive Learning in the Law? Now its’s possible (if you’re into IP) March 17, 2009
Posted by luigi in Interesting Initiatives.add a comment
I recently came across a website called “Intellectual Property Colloquium“, an initiative of Prof. Doug Lichtman of UCLA Law School. The website disseminates a monthly podcast of a hour-long conversation about an important patent, copyright, or technology topic. The format varies, but typically the show is built around one or several conversations between Prof. Lichtman and relevant guests. The January show, for instance, was a one-on-one discussion with the Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit about his court and how it is helping to evolve patent law. To give another example, the current show is an, uhm, lively thirty-minute conversation about copyright law’s statutory damages regime between Prof. Lichtman and Harvard’s Charlie Nesson, followed by clips from four other interviews with relevant academics and even the General Counsel of the RIAA.
Further, the very first show was a live show with Fred von Lohmann of the EFF, Prof. Lichtman, and an audience of about thirty people, including students and faculty at UCLA.
One charm of the site is that it offers completely free CLE credit to (US) lawyers who listen. In particular, all shows aired thus far qualify in New York, California, Texas, Illinois, and Washington, with more states coming later this year. That’s not itself a reason to listen, obviously, but it is an added perk for lawyers who might need that extra nudge in order to justify spending the time.
If it’s something that catches your interest, as it caught mine, the site is at www.ipcolloquium.com. One can download or stream the shows from there, and there is also an archive of older shows.
“Law and Globalization” Call for Papers March 16, 2009
Posted by luigi in Law Reviews.add a comment
It took a while, but finally the “Law and Globalization” Call for Papers which I was already discussing this summer on this very blog sees the light! The ILSU Working Paper Series has changed its name to Bocconi School of Law Student-Edited Papers, after formal affiliation took place. But the spirit of the journal stays substantially the same.
The main theme has been articulated in a series of subtopics, which may be viewed by downloading the Call for Papers announcement here.
Also, a writing competition is attached to the Call for Papers, whereby the best eight contributions will have the opportunity to be considered for publication as chapters of a book on Law and Globalization with a corresponding law publisher, subject to final publication approval of selected contributions by the latter. It is definitely worth a try!
Final deadline is May 15th, 2009.
Italian Uniform Legal Citation System September 16, 2008
Posted by luigi in Law Reviews, Legal Writing.add a comment
The world now has a new Uniform System of Citation, along with the Bluebook and OSCOLA (Oxford Standard of Citation for Legal Authorities).
Jacopo Busnach Ravenna, a member of the ILSU Working Paper Series Editorial Board, has written a short – yet fairly comprehensive – citation guide for Italian lawyers. The name of the Italian Uniform Legal Citation System is “LexIndex – Regole per una Corretta Citazione Giuridica” [Lexindex - Rules for a Correct Legal Citation].
It may be downloaded here, and it is distributed under Creative Commons License 2.5 Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike.
More Good Ideas: Further Info on the Connecticut Intellectual Property Notes August 26, 2008
Posted by luigi in Law Reviews, Legal Writing.add a comment
Prof. Steven Wilf, the faculty advisor in charge of the Connecticut Intellectual Property Notes (hereinafter IP Notes) - which I reported about in my last post – has kindly provided all Edublawg readers with additional information on the nature and purpose of the IP Notes, which I am summarizing below.
The Connecticut Intellectual Property Notes was conceived as a “seamless e-journal.” In particular, it was intended to cater for the situation in which a senior partner in a law firm has a novel or grey-area IP problem. Yet, since she has figured out how to cabin the problem without resolving the issue, she can no longer charge billable hours to a client (though she still wants to figure out the issue more fully). In this context, law students play the part of unpaid law firm associates who can be assigned to the task: the student provides a memo for the partner, and they both collaborate on a short article with shared attribution.
The fact that it is a firm partner choosing the topic ensures that other lawyers are probably facing similar issues, which accounts for the “seamless” nature of the publication: authors and audience are the same.
Additionally, articles appearing on the IP Notes are usually shorter in length than ordinary law review pieces. A more manageable size, along with the possible greater timeliness of published pieces (which should be enabled by the peculiar topic selection mechanism outlined above), both contribute to creating a resource with the potential of being immediately useful to the legal community and, in particular, to legal practitioners.
As for the educational and professional aspects, through the IP Notes, the law partner with years of legal writing experience does the editing and exercises quality control. Finally, the relationship which inevitably builds between law partner and student might also extend beyond the immediate writing of the article, thereby providing the student with valuable professional opportunities.
At this time, students do not receive credit for their work on the IP Notes. It has been a pure “labor of love”. However, since students have competing demands on their time, the IP Notes might eventually have to move to a system of granting credits in a way that more closely resembles a traditional law journal institutional structure. Nevertheless, Prof. Wilf’s aim is to create a board for the journal which includes both practicing lawyers and student members.
Finally, there are plans to initiate US student/non-US student collaborations. This, of course, will mean that topics will need to be chosen in a different fashion and that a different editing mechanism will have to be put in place. In fact, Prof. Wilf believes that US students, who are often less well exposed to comparative law issues than their European counterparts, would truly benefit from working with a student from abroad on international legal issues. In turn, a European student (so far, only Europe & Israel have been thought of as possible collaboration venues) would sharpen his/her legal English writing skills.
Good Ideas: Connecticut Intellectual Property Notes August 19, 2008
Posted by luigi in Law Reviews, Legal Writing.1 comment so far
One point I particularly enjoyed in the interview with Eric S. Nguyen, was when he said (although in slightly more nuanced terms) that the law review editing experience is a poor proxy for having students write their own scholarship.
Now, aside from seminars or summer writing fellowships (the latter, in particular, could really be a challenge to implement for lower-tier law school), are there other ways “ordinary” schools could spur students to write their own papers, but to do so in a supervised manner, so as to help them really polish their research skills and legal writing style?
A possible answer I found in the Connecticut Intellectual Property Notes (hereinafter IP Notes). I came across this kind of initiative while browsing the University of Connecticut School of Law’s website, after a paper of mine had been accepted by the Connecticut Journal of International Law.
Essentially, the IP Notes are an e-publication of the University of Connecticut School of Law, supervised by Prof. Steven Wilf. However, differently from other publications, this journal is not only edited, but also entirely written by students. In particular, member students write short, practitioner-oriented pieces, subsequently cite check and format them, and finally publish these articles on the IP Notes website. What’s interesting, however, is that each student author is “backed up” by a practitioner advisor, that provides the newbie legal writer with – I am guessing – substantial feedback regarding the content and novelty of the piece.
I was not able to learn how participating students are selected, and whether they are actually free of choosing whatever topic (within the boundaries of IP law) they wish. But these, after all, are secondary aspects. The big novelty still lays in the great opportunity inherent in a note-only journal where students are not just left to themselves, but are formally assigned a supervisor to guide them through the process.
Of course, I am not hoping that all student-edited law reviews turn into note-only journals, the access to which being restricted only to students belonging to the issuing law school. Instead, I believe that, along with ordinary law reviews, law schools could also implement experiences like the IP Notes, which seem to be very close to Working Paper Series. After all, students receive feedback on their writing and (although I’m not sure this is the case with the IP Notes) could eventually re-publish better and polished works elsewhere.
Another View of the Cathedral: A Talk With Eric S. Nguyen August 9, 2008
Posted by luigi in ILSU Working Paper Series, Interdisciplinarity, Law Reviews, Legal Writing.1 comment so far
Prof. Eugene Volokh warns about the danger, when discussing any given issue, of getting “tunnel vision”, i.e. of focusing only on some specific aspect of the problem, while losing sight of the bigger picture. The antidote, he says, is a “test suite”, which can very roughly be thought of as an attempt to put an idea into a wider perspective, testing its soundness and feasibility against a broader analytical framework.
This is what I felt the need to do, with respect to my views on interdisciplinarity, law reviews and legal education in general. After all, I thought, I am not even part of the American Law School system that I attempt to write about.
I am not, but Eric is.
I came to know Eric through the Harvard Law School news feed (indeed, not a common way of making acquaintances) which, on July 14, 2008, contained a report going along these lines: “Eric Nguyen publishes paper in leading bankruptcy law journal.” The news was, in fact, about a law student having published a paper, entitled “Parents in Financial Crisis: Fighting to Keep the Family Home,” in the American Bankruptcy Law Journal (a leading peer-reviewed publication in the field), containing an empirical analysis of people in bankruptcy. A quick Google search further led me to an SSRN account with several papers, two of which are co-authored (one with a U.S. Senator, the other one with a fellow student), and to an Editor profile at the Harvard Journal of International Law.
Eric appeared to have experience with law reviews – from both an editor’s and an author’s perspective and with both peer-reviewed and student-edited journals – as well as with the interdisciplinary perspective in legal scholarship, given the ample command of statistical analysis that was apparent from his bankruptcy paper. In sum, these are the reasons that have spurred me to contact Eric to arrange what turned out to be an almost two-hour-long telephone interview, in the course of which I have discovered a thoughtful, friendly and open-minded person. In two words, Eric Nguyen.
An (almost) 24-year-old Bostoner (although originally from Pennsylvania), Eric holds an undergraduate degree in Government from Harvard College and is about to begin his third year at Harvard Law School, preparing for a career in the government or in legal academia. Finally, and most importantly, he seems to have a natural inclination for producing quality scholarly articles.
It is from here that question time set off:
[The Birth of a Scholarly Paper]
Edublawg: Law students generally find it very hard to even publish on student-edited journals. With “Parents in Financial Crisis: Fighting to Keep the Family Home,” however, you have managed to move beyond that step, and have your work appear in a peer-reviewed journal. This clearly speaks for the quality of your contribution. But how did you manage to come up with a truly innovative article, to the point of convincing subject specialists to publish your piece?
EN: I’ve been very interested in the assumptions Congress relies upon when it makes decisions. One of my professors, Prof. Elizabeth Warren, has done a lot of research to show that Congress may have a flawed assumption about the typical bankruptcy debtor. It has passed more stringent laws to keep the overspenders and irresponsible gamers out of the system. But it hasn’t recognized that the typical debtor is actually in the middle class, may be in debt because of a serious medical crisis, and very often has children. If Congress knew that, they might pass different laws. So, I had this interest in taking an empirical look at bankruptcy. Then, in the U.S., we’ve seen a housing crisis lead to millions of home foreclosures. It made me wonder: Are parents with children the people most hurt by the housing crisis because they want to keep their children in the same schools and safe neighborhoods? By looking at bankruptcy data, I could figure that out. It turns out they are – and that might convince Congress that they should provide greater homeownership relief to parents.
Prof. Warren not only helped me devise those research questions which I later focused on, but she also gave me to access the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, a thorough database on bankruptcy proceedings which she has started keeping since the ‘80s that provides a wealth of important information for empirically-oriented studies.
Edublawg: So, I take it that receiving faculty assistance was a determining factor in the success of your research endeavor.
EN: Absolutely. Prof. Warren was really instrumental. I had the seed of an idea, but she really helped me ask the right questions and challenged my own assumptions. We started out on opposite sides of the issue politically. She convinced me to keep an open mind and just follow the numbers where they led. Of course, she and several other professors gave me access to their enormous dataset from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, a really amazing project that has collected data on bankruptcy since the 1980s. It’s been invaluable for empirical studies in the field.
I had a lot of help from friends, too. The funny thing about law school is how skeptical everyone becomes of everything. It was really helpful to have that constant questioning throughout the process.
Edublawg: Speaking of your friends, it seems that you are one of those people that not only possess the ability to come up with innovative ideas, but also to involve others in your research endeavors. I am referring, in particular, to the paper you co-authored with your fellow student Douglas Brayley.
EN: It’s been great to work with another author, especially when you have different strengths.
For instance, in the paper you just mentioned [note: "Good Business: A Market-Based Argument for Law Firm Diversity"], Doug really had a much better understanding of how law firms work, how they’ve evolved over time, what their trends have been. He took a legal profession class. He has a better intuitive feel for what goes on at a firm. I was better with the statistics – although, even there, Doug pointed out some number problems that we’re still working on! He could say, that’s not how a firm works, something must be wrong with your numbers. I’d say, well, that’s not how firms work, the numbers don’t support it.
The same kind of thing happened with my other co-authored paper, written with Sen. Specter. [note: "Representation Without Intimidation: Securing Workers' Right to Choose Under the National Labor Relations Act"]. I had read a lot of relevant cases, but the Senator and his staff had a really intuitive feel for how agencies actually make decisions. We could be checks on each other.
Edublawg: Going back to your bankruptcy paper, I find it surprising how a law student would decide to engage in empirical work, rather than “sticking” with a more traditional note or comment.
EN: I had a great opportunity in college to work with two political science professors – Profs. Jeffry Frieden and Beth Simmons - who stressed the importance of empirical work. I found that they could weave qualitative and quantitative evidence together to tell a compelling story. I actually wish I’d done more quantitative work then.
Maybe more importantly, one reason I came to law school is because I saw that law professors could keep one foot in the “real world.” They were testifying before Congress, advising politicians, being asked to comment to the media. I think people might be more convinced when you’ve got some data to back up your point, and I wanted to try my hand at that. I’ve become more and more convinced that empirical work has to become a more integral part of legal academia. Like I was saying before, courts come up with doctrines and Congress passes laws based on assumptions that often really can be empirically tested. Legal academics have a responsibility to test them, not just to frame broader theoretical questions.
I think your blog posting about Sen. Obama’s view of the legal profession touched on this. I saw that he said that lawyers have a special responsibility towards the general public. Part of that might be advocating for the underrepresented or for rights-protection. And part of it is to make sure that the government addresses real-world challenges responsibly and responsively. If there’s a housing crisis, the government should know how it affects people. If there’s a proposed labor law, the government should know its effects. I remember reading Judge Kozinski saying that the legal academics would be more influential if they addressed courts and legislatures and not just each other. I think that’s probably right. After all, it’s courts and legislatures who make such important decisions that affect us every day.
[Interdisciplinarity in Legal Scholarship]
Edublawg: You have brought up the topic of interdisciplinarity in legal scholarship. Do you think that’s where the future is headed to?
EN: I think so. I know that law schools are increasingly hiring J.D.-Ph.D.’s whose doctoral training in a subject other than law gives them a bigger toolkit to use to see how the world works. After all, it’s hard to write about Law & Psychology if you only have a superficial understanding of psychology. And you’re more likely to write about Law & Psychology if you’ve got a doctorate in psychology.
I think this could really change the feel of legal academia. Who knows, I’m just a student! But it seems like it would encourage law professors to draw on the insights from a much broader range of fields – and for those fields to draw on the law.
Edublawg: Would that be enough to enact an interdisciplinary turn? True, many American J.D.s have an undergraduate training in more quantitatively-oriented subjects, such as Math, Political Science or Economics. However, we mustn’t forget the great number of English majors that yearly make it into law school. How about them? Will they be able to understand legal scholarship that is interdisciplinary in nature?
Secondly, don’t you think that, as long as everyone is not able to understand what everyone else is saying, there might always be a risk that interdisciplinarity translates into a general opacity of legal discourse?
To put it differently, don’t you feel the danger that current interdisciplinary hype might just make the legal community overly receptive to any ideas (however poorly argued) provided they were supported by a few equations?
EN: That’s a real problem that probably has no easy fix. The audience for a legal paper is probably less able to evaluate empirical evidence, or is at least less comfortable with statistics. Scholarship from economics or political science might be less accessible to the legal academy than legal scholarship is to economists or political scientists. That might change as professors become more interdisciplinary. As for students, I think it’s an argument for colleges to strongly encourage basic economics, statistics, and political science-just as they require basic liberal arts courses. It can’t all be done by law schools, but I think they are at least trying to do their part.
Edublawg: What do you mean?
EN: Well, for example, I can take a seminar on Law and Economics, Law and Psychology, Environmental Policy, or do an independent writing project on any of those subjects. People can cross-register at other schools and take stats, economics, bioethics, and a lot of other courses, too.
Edublawg: Don’t you feel, however, that to gain a true, deep understanding of a non-legal subject, law schools should offer undergraduate-level courses at a graduate level? For instance, how could an English major really understand any paper about Law and Economics, without first having learnt some basic mathematics, such as Calculus?
EN: Well, yes, as I said, the problem can’t be solved by a law school alone. I should say, first, that it’s perhaps not necessary to do higher-level math to appreciate some core insights of law and economics, just as three years of law school aren’t necessary to appreciate the debate between originalists and evolving constitutionalists. I should also say, law school wouldn’t be nearly as rewarding if everyone had a degree in economics. The law is about how rules shape human behavior, and it’s better to have people who studied biology, education, English, government – really anything that broadens the perspectives we get.
But to the extent that some non-legal coursework is required to understand new legal scholarship, law schools should encourage cross-registration. I think, again, it’s also an argument for undergraduate schools emphasizing cross-disciplinary work. For my pre-law advisees – I am a pre-law advisor at Mather House [note: a student residence at Harvard University] – I try to explain how different courses might be useful to what they’d like to do in law school.
Also, some law schools are further thinking of providing two-year J.D. programs . . .
Edublawg: Are you talking about Northwestern?
EN: Exactly.
Edublawg: Would you favor such a form of more concentrated legal education?
EN: Well, I’m not sure about compressing everything into two years. I think it would be good to give students flexibility with at least a third of their time in law school – to give them time to write, to take classes in other fields, to take a more in-depth class on a subject they like. Harvard has really allowed that to happen. So, I think that flexibility might be more important than cutting down the time.
[Legal Writing]
Edublawg: So far, we have been talking of the contents of your article, also with reference to its interdisciplinary focus. How about the style? How did you master the techniques necessary for good legal writing?
EN: Well, I remember my first paper in college. I didn’t do well at all. I went to see the professor, who later became my thesis advisor, telling me how it was too “high-schoolish.” I was so upset, but he was right. I think I picked up better style by reading more. Political science articles are much more concise than law review articles, so I’d get in the habit of writing more concisely. I wish I could do that in this interview! It also helped just to read good fiction writers. I’m still trying to improve.
Edublawg: How about your graduate training? Don’t you have legal writing courses as well?
EN: We do, but I don’t think it’s that useful for scholarly writing. We get good training at writing briefs, but that takes a different skill.
Edublawg: On a more general level, what were the biggest challenges you found while writing you paper?
EN: Probably the time constraints. Writing a paper during the year is just very difficult when you’ve got so much other reading and coursework.
Another problem is how steep the learning curve is when you want to make a new contribution to a field. First, you might not know much about the substance. So you’ve got to read lots to learn about the topic. Second, you don’t know what’s already been written. So you’ve got to read lots to make sure your idea is new. And law review articles are so long, it takes a while. It’s made me realize that it’s a lot easier to write about subjects you’ve studied in class. That way, you’re at least somewhat familiar with the subject and have already done some reading on what’s out there.
Edublawg: You have spoken about contacting a faculty advisor for doing your scholarship. Are there other ways in which student scholarship is encouraged at Harvard Law School?
EN: Yes. First of all, we’ve got a lot of seminars with mandatory or optional paper options. It’s actually in one of those seminars that I started working on the bankruptcy paper with Prof. Warren. I think Dean Kagan has helped, too. We now have Summer Academic Writing Fellowships that give students a chance to write with a faculty advisor over the summer. We also have a lot of opportunities to work on journals. My experience has been that that’s largely about cite-checking and formatting, but the Law Review might have better writing opportunities. Those seminar and summer options give people a much better chance to think through ideas and write on their own.
Edublawg: In my post on Obama and interdisciplinarity in legal education, I also mentioned the fact that, in my view, top-tier law schools such as Harvard, Yale or Chicago do not specifically prepare their graduates to become a certain type of legal professional (e.g. a prosecutor, or an attorney). Instead, they do – in my view – strive to offer students as broad as possible a framework, providing them with the intellectual stature of true “social scientists,” in order to ultimately make them decide how and where to place their legal education at work within society. What you have just told me about the attention devoted to student scholarship does support this belief. Do you think this is actually true, or is it just an outsider’s impression?
EN: I definitely think that’s right. I don’t feel like we’ve ever been pushed to choose corporate law, public interest, government, or academia. The law school has been very clear that they want to provide us with the tools to be successful in any practice of law. Harvard now has “Upper-Level Programs of Study” to help guide people. There’s really good advising for anything we’d like to do, from picking a law firm to getting on the teaching market.
[Law Reviews: Student-Edited vs Peer-Reviewed]
Edublawg: You mentioned earlier Law Review membership . . . what can you tell me about your experience as an Editor at the Harvard Journal of International Law? How does that work?
EN: Well, the journal has a Submissions Committee that reviews submissions and checks to make sure the articles haven’t been preempted. They write memos about promising articles and send them to the Editorial Board for a vote. The Board often gets input from a professor on the strengths and weaknesses of the articles.
Edublawg: How long does that process take to complete?
EN: I haven’t worked on Submissions, but my impression is that it depends on whether we have already filled our volume or not. It could range from a few weeks to several months.
Edublawg: And is the review process actually blind?
EN: Well, in some sense I would say it is.
Edublawg: What do you mean?
EN: When the Editorial Board votes, no one knows who wrote the article. Of course, the articles are often not sent redacted, so the initial submissions readers are going to see who wrote it, who’s in the first footnote, all of those superficial proxies for quality. Those factors might be more persuasive because we’re just 2Ls [note: second-year law students] trying to figure out if these narrow scholarly ideas are actually insightful and helpful to advance the field.
Edublawg: I see. And how would you compare this process with that adopted by a peer-reviewed journal?
EN: First of all, peer-reviewed journals almost always require exclusive submission.
Edublawg: And your credentials. How much do they matter?
EN: Being a student has never mattered when I’ve submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. I think the editors there probably have a better idea whether an idea contributes something to their field or not, regardless of who came up with it.
Edublawg: How about feedback? I am not aware of a single student-edited law review providing any feedback. Is it different with peer-reviewed journals?
EN: I think it’s a lot better in the peer-review process, particularly if your article is rejected. As you said, student-edited law reviews provide little feedback unless they accept the piece. I’ve only had one article published in a political science journal, but my experience was really good. The peer reviewers sent back five or more pages of comments and critiques. One paper I wrote was rejected by a busy peer-review journal, and even then, they sent a lot of comments on how to improve the paper. That was really helpful. It’s also nice to know that you’re “close” to a good paper rather than miles away.
Edublawg: Why do you think student-edited law reviews do not provide any feedback?
EN: Well, they probably have to reject many more papers because of simultaneous submissions. It’s really too bad because students often provide the best – most skeptical – feedback. What I have written would be a lot worse off if my friends hadn’t taken the time to really read them substantively. They’re also not afraid to tell me when an idea is really dumb. They are law students, after all. Peer reviewers might have better insights about the “big picture” and where your article fits in to what’s already out there.
Edublawg: In a recent paper on student-edited law reviews in Europe, I – along with a fellow student – proposed the adoption of a two-tiered structure of legal publication. In Europe, that would be necessary in order to integrate student-edited publications with existing peer-reviewed journals. In the US, instead, such a system could still work by having, say, only 100 student-edited law reviews left, and transforming second- and third-tier law reviews into student-edited working paper series. That way, the burden on actual law reviews could be reduced, by having authors first try and publish on a working paper series in order to receive feedback, and have only the best working papers published in an actual law review. Do you think such a system could ultimately benefit the quality of legal scholarship?
EN: I’m not sure if the idea is practical, but I think it would be great. After all, it’s what happens – as far as I know – in every field other than law. In political science, for example, there are many working paper series, but only a handful of top journals where scholars are really trying to get published. It seems like it would be useful to use working papers and conference presentations to work out ideas before submitting them. I guess after you’ve written 40,000 words, though, people just want the darn thing published one way or another.
[ILSU Working Paper Series]
Edublawg: Speaking of student-edited working paper series, I would like to ask you one last question regarding one of my favorite topics here at Edublawg; namely, the ILSU Working Paper Series. Seeing how you have had plenty of opportunities to receive feedback from professors and other law students, I am getting doubtful that people like you could ever be interested in submitting a paper for consideration. All the more so if – for the time being – it were only students to provide feedback.
EN: I think getting feedback is almost always helpful. If you get useful pointers, you follow them. If not, you stick with what you have. I’d be happy to get feedback from participants in the ILSU Working Paper Series. The trick to making it successful might be to get a virtuous cycle started: Enough people submit and get feedback, and the series becomes more attractive. The more attractive it becomes, the more people will want to submit.
Edublawg: Eric, it couldn’t have been more helpful to have a chat with you this afternoon. Thank you also on behalf of all Edublawg readers.
EN: Thank you.
Article Watch: Web 2.0 and User Generated Content August 3, 2008
Posted by luigi in Article Watch.add a comment
I have recently come across the following article by George Carlisle and Jackie Scerri, with a very promising title: Web 2.0 and User-Generated Content: legal challenges in the new frontier, published on the Journal of Information, Law and Technology.
Here is the abstract:
The advent of Web 2.0 has enabled a host of new services and possibilities on the Internet. Among many new possibilities, users can easily upload online content that can be accessed, viewed and downloaded by other users around the globe. This has resulted in an explosive growth of User-Generated Content (UGC) which although creating exciting opportunities for users, presents many challenges, especially related to law and regulation. This paper discusses Web 2.0, UGC and the legal /regulatory challenges that have arisen in this new ‘frontier’ characterised by having a liberating democratic ethos (on one hand) but also sometimes tainted with illegal activity and disregard for accepted norms. Citing various researched case studies and legal cases, the paper highlights possible ‘dangers’ where traditional legal rules may be inadequate to address certain types of online activity, and discusses many of the legal challenges which this new frontier brings. These challenges are widespread and relate to intellectual property, liability, defamation, pornography, hate speech, privacy, confidentiality and jurisdiction among others. The paper also discusses the role of intermediaries (web hosts and service providers) and whether they can aid in effectively policing the new Web 2.0 frontier. Finally the paper attempts to discuss possible solutions for the way forward.
Student-Edited Law Reviews in Europe August 2, 2008
Posted by luigi in Article Watch, ILSU Working Paper Series, Law Reviews.add a comment
Yes. Student-Edited law reviews exist also in Europe, and the earliest ones actually have for nearly a decade!
I, along with colleague and friend Federico Longobardi, have authored a paper, now available in pre-print format on the ILSU Working Paper Series, that contains both a survey of existing law reviews in Europe, as well as a discussion on the role that such type of publications may have in a context heavily dominated by faculty-edited journals, compared to the U.S.
In particular, we propose a two-tiered system where law reviews neither aim to replace peer-reviewed journals (which are instead useful in that they provide a highly authoritative and select forum) nor are they relegated in a subordinate sphere, publishing only works by students and for students, outside of mainstream scholarship.
Instead, we envisage a form of mutual cooperation between the two types of publications, in order to foster quality improvement of (mostly) non-faculty-authored scholarship - for which it may be harder to beat the competition and get through to a broader audience - thereby opening up the legal marketplace of ideas, and simultaneously offering European law students a great opportunity for personal and professional growth, which – until recently – only their American peers could brag about.
I hope you enjoy the paper. Feel free to leave feedback either as a comment to this post, or by emailing me at: lrussi (AT) edublawg (DOT) com.
