Going on the Academic Job Market - Part Four: The Callback Interview and Job Talk

After a longer-than-expected hiatus, I'm finally back with the fourth installment of my advice posts for those going on the legal academic job market. In the meantime, the 2023 hiring season seems to be settling down, with Sarah Lawsky recently posting her always-helpful entry level hiring report for the 2023-24 hiring cycle. It looks like hiring rates were slightly down and applicant numbers up in comparison with the prior hiring cycle. 

Why have I taken so long between my prior posts on the job market and this post on the callback interview and job talk? Part of the explanation consists of the demands of the first year at a new institution (which included two new preps--one of which was a course I created from scratch). I've also tried to remain productive during the academic year, while also jumping into conference participation at what turned out to be a somewhat unsustainable rate. And summer teaching and course preparation have kept the last couple of months busy as well.

But my primary reason for delay was a lack of experience with the callback interview and job talk. When I went on the market, I threw my hat into the ring at the school where I was visiting. This, unfortunately, meant that I couldn't attend any of the candidate interviews of job talks that were going on that year. Additionally, I'd had very little experience attending conferences or workshops, giving me little background on the dynamics and unwritten rules of academic talks. My knowledge of interviews and job talks were therefore limited only to my personal experiences. While that's the theme of these posts, I realized that a year of attending job talks and seeing how candidates were received would help me better-inform readers. To that end, the following discussion takes into account both my own experience on the market, as well as insights from attending other job talks (and numerous conference/workshop presentations) over the past year.

My prior posts have discussed the initial decision to go into legal teaching, putting together one's application documents and FAR form, and the initial screening interview. This post moves beyond the screening interview to the callback interview. In doing so, I also talk more about the job talk paper which applicants are expected to submit and eventually present to those schools that call them back for interviews.

The usual disclaimer from my prior posts applies here: I'm primarily speaking from my limited personal experience going on the market last year, along with anecdotal evidence from others that I picked up along the way. I encourage all readers to reach out to those who have been through the process before, including professors who've recently served on hiring committees, alma maters who are often eager to help graduates out, and other schools' publicly available advice on the application process. Examples of these resources are included at the end of the post.

Callback Interview Basics

The only thing I can say about callback interview scheduling with much certainty is that you receive the invitation after your initial screening interview. From my limited experience, timing on the callback varies widely--I had some very quick requests, and some took a number of weeks. Other schools may do an initial round of callbacks but fail to fill their positions (either because they cannot agree to hire the candidates invited, or because those candidates secure positions elsewhere). This may lead to a further set of callback interviews--meaning that you may receive some callback inquiries months after your initial screener. Occasionally, scheduling conflicts and administrative hoops may lead to similar delays. 

From this, a few lessons. First, if you do a screening interview and don't hear from the school for a while, don't assume that they've ghosted you. Second, if you never end up hearing back, or if you receive a note that the committee will not be moving forward with your application, you should not take this as a reflection on your strength as an applicant. A lot is going on behind the scenes, and the school's decision can result from considerations such as teaching needs, scheduling demands, budgetary or administrative constraints, and other considerations over which you have no control.

Callback interviews often take place over two days. The first day is typically a dinner with several members of the hiring committee which serves as an initial introduction and icebreaker. The second day consists of a series of interviews, introductions, and a paper presentation at the law school. 

Callback interview events often include all or most of the following:

Group Interviews: You spend an hour or so in a conference room or the faculty lounge, where multiple members of the faculty will speak with you. Questions may raise from interview-like questions about your background, scholarship, and teaching interests, to more conversational topics like things to do around the city, background on the teaching and scholarly environment of the school, and other topics.

Student Interviews: Most of my callback interviews involved an interview with several students who would ask about my background, interest in the law school, and teaching strategies. I found that these interviews often focused more around pedagogy and teaching techniques than other interviews.

Dinner/other meals: Most callback interviews involve a dinner with several members of the faculty committee. The atmosphere at these dinners are often more relaxed than interviews throughout the day of the callback itself, but these interactions are often treated as a measure of how easy one is to get along with as well as an opportunity for both you and the committee members to learn more about one another. Several of my interviews involved a breakfast with faculty members as well before the day of interviews began. As with the dinner, these breakfasts tended to be more relaxed and informal.

Meeting the Dean: Most campus visits will include a meeting with the school's dean. From my experience, these tended to be informative discussions, with most deans primarily welcoming questions from the candidate and explaining the school's broader strategies and vision.

The Job Talk: You present an article and field questions from members of the faculty, typically over the course of an hour or so. Here, I'll discuss the talk itself. Elsewhere, I'll provide more detailed thoughts and suggestions on the job talk paper.

Other schools may include other events as part of their callback, but these are the common elements that I experienced when I went on the market.

Callbacks: The Interviews

While the interviews during a campus visit will vary by degree of formality, but keep in mind that they are all interviews. People will remember what you say, whether it's in a group interview, during a job talk, or at a dinner or breakfast. While you should strive to be conversational and approachable, avoid getting TOO comfortable.

Because you will likely have multiple rounds of interviews, the questions you'll be asked will likely run the gamut of subjects. At faculty group interviews, for instance, questions will likely range from specific inquiries about your research agenda and prior writings, to broader questions over why you are interested in academia overall. There will likely be a fair amount of overlap with the subjects covered in screening interviews, but here you will have more of a chance to flesh out your answers and address follow-up questions--which are often absent from the time-limited screening stage. 

This overlap means that you can often prepare for these interviews by using your preparation for the screening interview as the starting point. Look over the questions you were asked at the screener, and think through how you can expand on those answers, as well what follow up questions your interviewers might ask. While I tried to skim over the backgrounds of professors on the hiring committee and others who worked in my areas of interest, I found this sort of preparation work to be extensive and easy to forget. It's impossible to predict who you will speak with at all of your interviews. While there's likely a greater chance that those who teach and research in similar areas will be there, the timing of the interview has just as much of an impact on who will attend.

I generally found callback interviews to be conversational. Frequently, interviews with faculty will be group affairs, and questions may just as well prompt comments from other faculty members. While you want to be sure to answer the questions that are asked, realize that these interviews are also a test of how easy you are to talk to in a group setting, and what you will be like as a colleague. To that end, act as naturally as possible, while remaining professional. 

This may be easier to do if you keep the following in mind: callback interviews are an indicator of serious interest. It isn't cheap to fly someone out to a school, put them up in a hotel, and pay for their dinner. And it certainly isn't easy to align the schedules of the professors, deans, students, and others who will take part in the interview process. 

Callbacks: The Job Talk Paper

The job talk is typically an hour-long process in which you present your job talk paper to members of the school's faculty and field their questions on the paper. Job talks perform a variety of functions. They serve as a window into the candidate's research agenda and scholarship. They indicate whether and how a candidate can distill complex concepts and arguments into something a general audience can understand. They also serve as an indicator of how a candidate may act as a teacher--including how they act in front of a crowd, whether they're clear and understandable, and how responsive they are to audience questions.

What sort of paper is presented at a job talk? While this can (and may) be the subject of its own post, some thoughts may be helpful for now.

To start, some basics. The job talk paper should be in final form. Paper proposals, works-in-progress, and early drafts may be appropriate for certain workshops and conferences, but they do not belong in an entry-level job talk (I specify "entry-level," because I've seen successful talks involving earlier-stage drafts at the lateral stage--but even these involve some level of risk). The paper should be complete and polished. While many at the hiring institution may refrain from reading the whole thing, there will always be a relentless nerd or two on the faculty who will take the trouble of doing so and likely communicate their impressions to their colleagues. Impress these weirdos!

While the paper should be complete, it generally should not have already been published. The job talk is meant to be a workshop in which faculty engage with the paper and provide substantive comments and suggestions on revisions or further potential developments. Coming in with an already published piece upsets these expectations and will likely be poorly received. Ideally, the job talk paper should be accepted with a journal but still in the editing stage. Does the journal placement matter? Word I've heard on the street suggests, unfortunately, that it does. Lots of law faculty talk a big game about how much of a crapshoot the submissions process is and how little they care about law review rankings. But when it comes to the job talk paper, placement will likely matter with at least a portion of the faculty making the determination. If a job talk paper hasn't yet been accepted for publication--it isn't the end of the world. There's a chance that it may not be viewed as seriously as an accepted piece, but I get the impression that applicants are better off presenting an unpublished, unaccepted paper than one that's already been published.

The substance of the paper should reflect your research interests and complement the substance of your research agenda. When I gave my job talk (and when I give most other talks), I spend a few minutes at the outset explaining how the piece fits in with my other work and broader scholarly agenda. As an audience member at job talks, I like seeing similar introductions--and these introductions may be helpful for those audience members who've neglected to look over the applicant's research agenda before the talk.

It may also be strategic to choose a job talk paper that might appeal to as wide an audience as possible. If you write primarily in criminal law, but a paper has potential implications in another field--say constitutional law--it may be worth using this paper and flagging those implications in the talk itself. Doing so can get the attention of more participants and prompt more discussion during the talk itself. The more that attendees at the talk get to hear themselves talk, the better off you will likely be!

More than anything, the job talk paper should be a piece in which you have confidence and which you are willing to work with at length. It's hard to love any paper after presenting it and having it get picked apart a half-dozen times. You can minimize this frustration and make it more likely that you'll communicate your enthusiasm and expertise if your paper is something you are proud of and addresses an issue close to your heart. 

Callbacks: The Job Talk Presentation

As for the presentation itself, it is typically divided into two components: your presentation of the paper, and questions and comments from those in attendance. In my experience, the division between these components is pretty strict and you won't often get questions during the presentation itself, but it sometimes happens. 

The presentation itself shouldn't last more than 30 minutes, and should probably be closer to 20 minutes. This won't seem like a long time for the presenter, but 30 minutes is a long time for an audience member--particularly if the subject matter is in an area beyond their expertise. I made it a habit to ask whoever brought me to the job talk room how much was typical of presentations, and I'd try to tailor my presentation based on what they told me. Even if you're keeping the presentation to a fairly short time frame, you should still give a thorough account of your paper's argument so that attendees who have not read the paper will be aware of what you are arguing.

The Q&A session of the presentation will test your ability to interact professionally with those in attendance and to think on your feet. Attendees will be looking to how presenters handle questions out of left field and whether they can work with pushback in a firm, but non-adversarial manner. Keeping in mind that a job talk serves to evaluate your teaching ability is a good technique for maintaining the appropriate tone of clarity and firmness, while avoiding overly defensive responses. 

While it's important to be deferential and welcome feedback and suggestions, be careful not to be overly enthusiastic or phony. And when a question is truly out of left field, do what you can to engage with it, but have fallback language ready along the lines of, "that's an interesting point that I haven't considered. While my initial thoughts are [give it your best shot], I'd need to look more into the literature on that topic."

Preparing for the Job Talk

If you're in a visiting position or fellowship that gives you opportunities to present or workshop your papers, take these opportunities! These workshops will mirror what you're likely to expect at job talks and will be great preparation. When possible, I find it helpful to ask attendees or organizers to be particularly tough in their questioning and to provide feedback on the overall performance and what might be improved.

While some visiting positions and fellowships go out of their way to give participants the opportunity to present their work, others may not. This is particularly true of visiting teaching positions that focus primarily on filling a teaching post. Those who are going on the market from these positions may need to be a bit more proactive in seeking out preparation opportunities. I've listed possible strategies below, but this is far from an exhaustive list.

• If you are in a visiting position that focuses primarily on teaching, see if the school's research dean / dean of intellectual life / other equivalent position would be willing to let you present at an internal faculty workshop. I've found that these deans can be quite accommodating with setting the workshop earlier in the fall semester if one is preparing to go on the market.
• Speak with colleagues about holding a mock job talk (or several). Even if your school doesn't hold workshops (or cannot schedule them in time), you will likely be able to find at least a few others who are willing to listen to your presentation, act as questioners, and give you candid feedback on your performance. This may be an option for those applying to academia from nonacademic positions as well--while you may need to provide a bit more guidance on what sort of questions or feedback you are looking for, the questions that nonacademic colleagues ask probably won't be far off from questions you'll get from faculty who aren't experts in the field you're presenting on.
• Speak with your alma mater about arranging practice interviews and job talks. For me, this was probably the most helpful step I took in preparing for callback interviews. I got in touch with one of my professors who put me in touch with people at the school who had taken on the role of advising alumni interested in seeking academic positions. This, in turn, led to a practice job talk that was by far the toughest of any of the presentations I gave over the course of the job search. Your school wants to see you succeed, so reach out either to a former professor or the career office to see what resources are available!
• For all of these, don't be afraid to urge those participating in the workshops or practice job talks to take on particular roles that will be more helpful. I found tougher questions to be better preparation. You may also want to ask that participants drill down on certain areas that you think are most vulnerable. Work with others to make your preparation as effective as possible.
• If you are in a fellowship or visiting position with a law school, ask to sit in on job talks that your institution is holding for applicants. This can be a great opportunity to see what works and what doesn't.

As stated above, much of this advice is based on my own experience and what I've been able to pick up from others. Ask around with colleagues and contacts at other institutions to gather a variety of advice! There's a lot to the callback interview, and the more you know and the more tips you get, the better positioned you will be to succeed at this stage.

Resources

https://nrgondwe.com/2023/08/02/the-legal-academic-job-market-5-tips-for-screening-interview-and-job-talk-prep/

How to Give an Academic Talk: https://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/howtotalk.pdf 

This thread from Dan Epps contains some good job talk and callback interview advice.

Long Live U.S. News

Brian Frye has posted a recent essay entitled, "The Gray Lady's Guide to Legal Education." Here's the abstract:

For better or worse, the U.S. News & World Report law school ranking has dominated legal education for decades, by giving prospective law students information about the relative prestige of law schools. But in recent years, it has become largely irrelevant, as prospective law students have begun to look elsewhere when deciding which law school to attend. Apparently, we need a new law school ranking to provide useful information about prestige. This essay provides such a ranking.

Frye briefly summarizes the history of the U.S. News rankings, their trend toward fluctuation, and growing irrelevance. Sophisticated readers will find much to enjoy in this discussion.

Like all good attorneys (and a few law professors), Frye doesn't stop with identifying a problem. He also presents a solution: rank law schools using the "NYT ranking" instead. What does this mean?

The methodology of the NYT ranking is simple, but elegant. I created a list of 196 United States law schools by copying it from the U.S. News & World Report “Best Law Schools” 2024 ranking. I then searched for the official name of each law school in the New York Times archive and recorded how many times the law school had been mentioned by name in the past 12 months. I then ranked all 196 law schools according to the number of times they were mentioned by the New York Times in the last 12 months. The law school with the highest number of mentions was ranked number one, the law schools with no mentions were ranked last, and the rest of the law schools came in between.

Frye goes on to address and dismiss potential objections and concerns with the method--including worries over typos (won't happen / if so, disrespectful), bad publicity (doesn't exist), and regional bias (the NYT is Everyone's Paper). Plus, Frye notes the comparative benefits of the NYT ranking, as it is "much funnier than other law school ranking methodologies." Count me convinced!

But Frye goes even further, comparing his present project to the task of "writ[ing] the New York Times obituary for the U.S. News law school rankings." Frye concludes that U.S. News "must cede the vessel to another"--the New York Times.

Here, I think, Frye goes too far (something he's never done before).

Frye's "Conclusion" section is followed by a further section (which Frye should probably label an "Appendix" if he wants to appeal to the fancier publications), entitled "The New York Times 'Best Law Schools' 2024 Rankings." Here, Frye lays out the New York Times rankings for all to see. 

In doing so, though, Frye reveals that a ranking system is an idea that must ultimately be expressed in some visual form--typically a list. And in laying out the list for readers, one faces the question: how to display those schools that end up tying in the rankings? In the list, one school must still come first, and one must come last. As the overall list corresponds to the ranking system, a physically higher placement among tied entries leads to the appearance of more prestige, even if this prestige is simply illusory. But for readers in a busy world increasingly dominated by images, video, and charts rather than dense text, illusory prestige is the coin of the realm.

As it turns out, ties pervade the NYT rankings. Five schools are tied in 18th place, eight in 24th, 10(?) in 32nd, 17 in 42nd, 44 at 59th, and 94(!) at 103rd. This leaves a lot of schools to list, despite having the same ranking.

And how does the New York Times rankings proceed to list these tied entries? By resorting to the very thing this list was supposed to replace--if not actively destroy: the U.S. News Rankings of each of the tied institutions.

One could have resorted to all manner of alternate ordering mechanisms. Perhaps list tied schools in alphabetical order--resulting in dramatic movement for schools like Ave Maria and Appalachian School of Law. Perhaps use Excel's random-number function to change the ordering each year, giving Microsoft a well-deserved, outsized influence in law schools' prestige appearances. Perhaps one can write the names of law schools onto a set of uniform balls that are deposited in a box and drawn out by lot.

But by listing tied schools in order of their U.S. News rankings, the NYT ranking list perpetuates that which it was meant to replace, as schools with higher U.S. News rankings appear higher--sometimes much higher--on the list than their purportedly equally ranked counterparts. The result is a blow to the appearance of prestige that corresponds to U.S. News rankings, bringing us back to a situation not unlike the status quo. The U.S. News rankings are dead. Long live U.S. News.

To be sure, there are plenty of fixes for those who wish to see U.S. News truly buried. I've listed a few above--though one must not count out the addition of a secondary set of tie-breaking newspaper references to add onto New York Times references. I think the San Antonio Express News is a good choice, as it adds geographic and political diversity to the list.

Law Review Submissions: Editors' Perspectives, Ideal Articles, and the Summer Submission Cycle

It's that time of the year: Scholastica has released their "Advice from Outgoing Law Review Editors" post, featuring thoughts and feedback from law review editors on submission criteria and strategy, as well as the state and future of legal scholarship.

Much earlier in the year, the chief articles editors* of the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, and Stanford Law review held an online presentation addressing similar points, including issues of article length, timing of submissions, and peer review procedures.

Below are some thoughts and reactions to the post and the presentation--with particular attention to points that I found surprising and illuminating. 

*A note: my notes from the Harvard/Yale/Stanford call (which took place in January 2024) do not include the names or exact titles of the editors who were speaking, although it's my recollection that they were all the chief articles editors (or that equivalent role) at the respective journals. To the extent that I refer to the "editors" at these journals, I'm referring to those participants on the call.

Law Review Submissions: The Basics

Some advice from law review editors on ideal submissions should go without saying. A number of comments in Scholastica's survey of editors reflect the desire that authors substantially research, revise, and footnote their pieces before submitting them.

This appears to be of particular concern for smaller journals with limited editorial staffing. One anonymous editor in the Scholastica survey noted that these journals "giv[e] weight to whether or not the article needs significant or challenging changes before publication outside the normal scope of editing." Another editor notes the importance of proper citation to "help ensure a smooth editing process."

What about article length? Law professors (and others) love to lament the length of law review articles, critiquing their overall length, over-attention to background materials, and extensive footnoting. Nearly two decades ago, a number of high-profile journals issued a joint statement that persists to this day acknowledging concerns over the length of law review articles and suggesting that "[t]he vast majority of law review articles can effectively convey their arguments within the range of 40-70 law review pages." While I agree this is true, I have doubts over law reviews' and authors' efforts to achieve this ideal, as lengthy articles continue to pervade law journals at all levels (though I do think that there's been some improvement over the past few decades).

Unfortunately, the Scholastica survey is relatively quiet on the subject. Last year's survey also didn't have much to contribute on the issue of length, though one anonymous editor predicted that "submissions and published articles will continue to shorten in length." I applaud the optimism!

When asked how long articles should be, the editors at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford gave some numbers--though much remained waffly. Yale's editor said that they look for articles that are around 25,000 words, including footnotes. This is decidedly less helpful than a suggested range for articles, although this same editor noted that they may take "Essays" of around 15,000 words. Stanford's editor suggested a range of 20,000-30,000 words, with a cap of around 30,000 words, although she made room for the possibility of going lower than 20,000. Harvard's editor threw out a 30,000 word figure, though she noted it was not a strict cutoff. Longer lengths would count against the probability of acceptance. Given Harvard's selectivity, one would think that such a negative weight would spell doom for an article. But a quick (admittedly limited) check of the one article in the HLR's most recent issue suggests that the editors are perfectly willing to go well beyond the 30,000 word mark. 

Letterhead Bias and Anonymity

Interestingly, none of the editors Scholastica surveyed mentioned anonymous submission practices. One editor in the 2023 survey did predict that "more law reviews will move towards anonymized submissions."

Concerns over letterhead bias--that is, editors' tendency to more heavily weight submissions from authors employed by, or who have graduated from, elite institutions--do seem to be on at least some editors' minds. One of the recent respondents urged that articles be selected "for their quality rather than based on the perceived prestige of the author." One hopes that editors generally strive for this, but without anonymous submission procedures, this ideal remains largely a matter of hope and faith.

Yale, Harvard, and Stanford incorporate anonymity to at least some degree. All of these journals' initial reviewers read the piece without any information regarding the author. Things get a little fuzzier, however, when it comes to the "peer review" process that these journals employ. Harvard's editor stated that faculty review of submissions is double-blind. Yale's editor stated that while its reviewers remain blind to the author of the piece, their chief articles editor is aware of the author's identity at that stage of review.

I'm on record calling for more anonymity in journals' review process. I think that concerns over circumventing anonymous submissions are overstated, and that more anonymity would go a long way to combat letterhead bias. Several elite journals appear to share this stance, and I hope that more continue to follow suit.

Grabbing Attention

Those who author legal scholarship love to tell their readers how important their articles are. Noah Chauvin details and critiques authors' obsession with telling their readers how their work fills a gap in the literature. Other calling cards for this technique include claims that an area of law is "undertheorized," or that an article is "the first" to ever broach a subject.

While exaggerated claims of novelty are easy to criticize, they exist for a reason. One editor responding to this year's Scholastica survey emphasized authors' need to detail their contribution:

Provide a detailed abstract that includes your thesis and how this paper will add to the literature or field. Often, the value of the article isn’t immediately apparent. If the reviewers aren’t familiar with the field, they might overlook something innovative or conclude that it isn’t novel.

This remark highlights editors' continuing use of the novelty benchmark in assessing the value of scholarship. It also urges authors to continue to place their assertions of gap-filling and trailblazing at the top of their work. 

The Yale/Harvard/Stanford editors didn't have much to say on the subject of novelty, although my notes reflect that Yale's editor indicated that novelty (along with staying power and a secret, third thing that I couldn't write down in time) was one of the primary things they look for in a submission. If you are writing in a novel or creative format, you'd do better to submit this as an essay (although, remember, you'll still have up to 15,000 words to devote to the project!)

Submissions and Expedites

Those who first learn about the law review submission process often come away with the impression that the system is bonkers. And that's because it is. Authors submit articles to the Scholastica website (along with a CV and cover letter), and then submit to dozens of journals all at once. Each submission costs money--an amount that seems to creep up each year. Most (but not all) schools provide unlimited funding to authors, which indirectly incentivizes mass submissions to dozens (if not hundreds) of journals for each piece. Law reviews become inundated with these submissions and Scholastica gets rich.

Journals eventually make offers to publish submissions, which often come with a time limit. The authors then notify all other journals in which they'd rather publish that they've received that offer, and that these other journals have until that other journal's deadline to make their own decisions on whether to publish the piece. This is known as "expediting" an article, and authors use it to "trade-up" their article into as prestigious a placement as possible.

This system isn't without its critics. Anthony Kreis has a succinct takedown of the process, arguing that the expedite process exploits the labor of those in less-prestigious journals who end up serving as an initial round of review for higher-ranked journals. Due to the volume of submissions that journals tend to receive, I suspect that many high-ranking journals effectively require expedite notifications as a prerequisite for initial review. 

The editors at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford had little to say on the subject of expediting. And why would they? They have little to worry about when making offers to authors. When one is at the top of the law review pecking order, where else will an author hope to place upon receiving such an offer?

But other editors don't have it so easy. One editor, responding to Scholastica's survey, took a pretty dismal view of the future of law review submissions:

People have preconceived notions of which journals are prestigious or will provide the best editing.

With the fall of the rankings, I am seeing smaller schools do more to get on the map and be seen as reputable and competitive institutions. But unfortunately, I think the way the submission cycles work, with people “gaming” offers, smaller schools will get left behind. They will spend their time reviewing submissions from authors who submit to every journal available. Or the submissions received will not be high enough quality, which can start a vicious cycle of poor articles year after year, leading to the journal’s demise. The submission cycle favors the traditional, elite, and robust.

Another editor has thoughts on how to improve this state of affairs:

I think legal scholarship would ultimately benefit if a cap were imposed on the number of law reviews to which an author could submit a single article. This would eliminate the gamesmanship that authors sometimes engage in that involves submitting to as many journals as possible and using existing offers in an attempt to procure an offer to publish with a higher-ranked journal. Under a system with a cap, journals would waste far less time reviewing hundreds of articles and be able to more efficiently and thoroughly review articles where the authors are truly interested in publishing with that law review.

Authors face a variety of pressures on where to place. For those hoping to break into a career in academia, publishing in prestigious outlets can make the difference in landing a job. Those lucky enough to get onto the tenure track may then have incentives to published in more highly ranked journals--whether doing so is related to grant/bonus/reward payment schemes, or whether doing so is tied to tenure requirements. These incentive structures play a role in contributing to the phenomena of mass submissions and expediting and shouldn't be left out when one is criticizing these tactics.

Other pressures, though, are more illusory. Ezra Rosser describes "[t]he never-ending pursuit of the gold star," that frequently becomes an obsession for law professors. The "intangible quality of 'being or seeming smart'" motivates law professors to write on ephemeral matters of high theory, and to seek out prestige when publishing. This desire to continue attaining the highest placement possible--even after one has a job, tenure, and all manner of lovely titles, may drive many law professors to continue playing the expedite game long after it is of any true use to their career and prestige. 

To be sure, placement prestige does play a role. Readers may give more weight to articles that place more highly. Placements in high-ranking law reviews may garner more citations. 

But authors shouldn't forget that this pursuit of constant validation impacts law students' lives. Editors who put their time into reviewing a piece, only to have it snapped up by a higher-ranking journal, have sunk their time and energy into a lost cause. This becomes all the more concerning when authors submit to journals without the intention of ever actually publishing--instead hoping to game any acceptances into successful expedites, or to leave the piece unpublished until a later submission cycle. This latter practice, I propose, is something that all authors should take great efforts to avoid.

The Summer Cycle

Sorry--back off my soapbox. Law review submissions revolve around two primary "seasons" or "cycles." There's the spring submission season which starts near the beginning of February, and the summer submission season which starts in August. The general wisdom is that the spring submission cycle is preferable because this is the time of year when editorial boards are beginning to fill their volume. In summer, on the other hand, editors are trying to fill what slots remain--which may mean that there are only a few potential openings for new articles compared with the comparatively unlimited potential of the spring cycle. Because of this, the advice you'll typically hear is to publish in the spring whenever possible, and to avoid the comparatively tough summer cycle.

I've tended to take this advice with a grain of salt, as I've submitted and published most of my work during the summer cycle. I typically do so out of a combination of reasons--summer is when I have the most time to write, a fair amount of what I write on tends to be time-sensitive, and I'd rather move onto new projects than to build up a glut of unsubmitted work. This experience leads me to encourage people not to sleep on the summer submission cycle.

But what I heard earlier this year from the Harvard/Yale/Stanford editors may cause me to rethink my way of doing things.

All of these journals assured the audience that they accept pieces submitted during the summer. Harvard claims to have a year-round submission cycle. And yet the Harvard editor stated that for their last issue, they accepted seven articles in the spring and three in the fall. Yale's editor stated that they always leave the summer open, noting that they accepted two (2) submissions during the prior summer cycle. And Stanford's editor stated that they want authors to have a "substantial opportunity" to publish in the summer, noting that their prior volume consisted of ten pieces submitted in the spring, and four submitted in the summer.

While all of these editors asserted that this information demonstrated the utility of submitting in the summer, my takeaway was that the critics of the summer submission season were right--at least with regard to these journals. Getting placed at journals like these is difficult enough in the aggregate, and doing so in a season where one's prospects are placing only two to four articles for the overall volume leaves one with dismal prospects of success. To be sure, these are only three journals--and their prestige gives them the pick of the submissions universe. But perhaps there is something to waiting till the spring, if possible, to submit pieces to law reviews if this disparity is more widespread.

Artificial Intelligence?!

Here's a note from an anonymous editor in the Scholastica survey that raised at least one professor's concern:

It appears that there have been a lot more theoretical/social science and law crossovers lately. I predict that there will also be a significant increase in AI articles, given the number of symposiums that are talking about AI. I’m sure that selecting articles will no doubt use the same technology that we are discussing in our articles to also assist in choosing articles.

The notable portion of this quotation is the un-bolded text of the last sentence, which suggests that editors who select articles for publication will use AI technology "to also assist in choosing articles." What might this mean? Is it not enough that generative AI is going to end the world--or worse: render attorneys obsolete? Will our technological overlords also begin making the publication decisions that determine the trajectory of my and my colleagues' careers?

I'm not sure I'm all that concerned by the remark as some other authors might be--primarily because I don't think it's a fully enough formed idea to pose a discernable threat (or promise?) of substantial change to the way things work. Perhaps there is something to be said about running preemption checks using technology--and maybe AI will play a role in the process (though I suspect that the technology at issue here would more likely resemble existing search algorithms rather than the language models powering technology like ChatGPT). Indeed, when we start thinking of the varieties of technologies that exist under the "AI" umbrella, one might begin to see just how broad a notion editorial use of AI might be.

Law Review "Policies"

A theme I notice--particularly in thinking over the remarks of the Harvard/Yale/Stanford editors is the distance between written policies and how these policies work out in practice.

The Harvard Law Review, for example, claims to review submissions year-round. Yet the Harvard editor repeatedly made remarks about following submission cycles--at one point noting that they accepted seven submissions in the preceding spring cycle, and three in the summer. To me, this sounds like a journal that--like the others--follows the submission cycles. To be sure, this may result from submission patterns rather than the journal's own review procedures. But if this is the case and Harvard's review practices end up mirroring the summer and spring submission cycles, I wonder how much it means for Harvard to claim to review submissions year round.

There are other examples of discrepancies between policies and practices. Overly long articles are less likely to be accepted--except for the ones that are indeed accepted and published. The journals strive to maintain robust summer submission cycles--sometimes publishing two, even four!, articles submitted in the summer months. We accept "essays" that are around 15,000 words in length (Yale); or we accept essays (well--maybe 1-2 per year) (Harvard).

Perhaps this is an effort to educate authors who lack practice experience to how the theory and letter of the law breaks down in practice. A legal safeguard or requirement that is clear as day in the statute books can be of little use in a crowded courtroom where the judge has their own view of the law and the client lacks the funds to appeal. Law journals' willingness to bend or break their stated rules offer legal academics a taste of this all-too-frequent frustration practitioners face.