Texas A&M University School of Law Texas A&M Law Scholarship Faculty Scholarship 1-1993 Reviewing the Law Reviews, Texas-Style Jim Paulsen James Hambleton Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Jim Paulsen & James Hambleton, Reviewing the Law Reviews, Texas-Style, 56 Tex. B.J. 284 (1993). Available at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Texas A&M Law Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Texas A&M Law Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LEGAL RESEARCH Reviewing the Law Reviews, Texas- Style By Jim Law Review banquet). world of legal academia. The number Paulsen The SMU Law Review, which recently ofll islegal not periodicalswell in the ispublish-or-perish growing explo- and James Hambleton has undergone a name change from the sively, and is now more than 700. Southwestern Law Journal in an apparent Established law reviews are sneaking more from academic obscurity by a reader who effort to enhance its national name recogni- and more pages of text into each volume. suggested that she submit the manuscript to tion, occupies a unique second place show- There is a growing consensus, however, the American Association of Law ing in citations by both federal and state that genuine legal scholarship is not Librarians. The AALL in turn was appellate courts. The strong showing in fed- expanding at a pace sufficient to fill all impressed enough to ask Justiss to present eral citations might be explained by the these blank pages. Seminar speakers advise the paper at its 1992 annual meeting and to journal's general emphasis of federally-ori- new law professors that somewhere there is be recognized as the author of the AALS's ented articles; the strong showing in state a law review willing to print anything a outstanding student paper of the year. The courts is due largely to Southwestern's professor is willing to put on paper; a little full findings will no doubt be published in annual survey issue. Our rough count indi- browsing will confirm that those lecturers the near future, and we would not want to cates that the annual survey issue accounts know whereof they speak. hurt Justiss' publication prospects by for about two-thirds of all Southwestern's Moreover, much contemporary legal revealing all the juicy details. Nonetheless, state court citations, with Joe McKnight's scholarship is traveling down the roads of we could not resist devoting a column to a perennial "Family Law - Husband and "comparative" or "critical" this-and-that or headline news summary. Wife" contribution holding a commanding "law-and-whatever" movements. However While many of the figures confirm wide- lead within the issue. fascinating and ground-breaking some of ly-held beliefs, there are one or two surpris- While having nothing to do with Justiss' these ideas may be, it is well-nigh impossi- es. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the over- figures per se, we cannot resist adding a ble to work them into the day-to-day busi- all "winner" in the combined total number side comment or two on this subject. While ness of advising clients or trying and judg- of federal and Texas appeals court citations "annual survey" articles tend to be discount- ing lawsuits. It is little wonder that many to articles produced during a 20-year period ed whenever law school faculties get practitioners and judges are refusing to (1970-89) in the state's "front line" law together to count up scholarly productivity wade through the 150,000-plus pages that reviews: the St. Mary's Law Journal. With for tenure decisions, they do seem to pro- law reviews pump into the "junk stream" of its emphasis on practice-oriented materials, vide a singularly useful service to the bench legal literature every year. In these reces- sometimes authored by distinguished jurists and bar. For example, the Southwestern sionary times, when library budgets and (Judge David Hittner and former Justice Law Journal's "annual survey" issue available shelf space are shrinking, a close William Kilgarlin account for many of the accounts for more than half of all court cita- look into the usefulness of law reviews recent citations), the St. Mary's Law tions to that publication, including a sub- therefore begins to make sense. Journal barely nudges out the venerable stantial number of all federal court citations. Beginning as early as the 1930s, studies Texas Law Review for the number one posi- One study result reflects a real oddity in of the "real-world" impact of law reviews tion. The St. Mary's Law Journal's strength the history of Texas law reviews. The South have appeared in print. Typically, the author is also reflected in its strong first place Texas Law Review (or "Journal," until a will count citations to law reviews in court ranking in citations by state judges over the couple of years ago) comes in with a dismal opinions or other law review articles, and same 20-year period. seventh place showing in the overall stand- conclude which law reviews are the "best" The Texas Law Review's overall showing ings. While this standing may perplex those or have the most apparent influence on reflects some success in the school's who glance over the contents pages and courts or legal scholars. From a Texas attempt to "go national." Articles appearing notice occasional good - even great standpoint, these studies usually hold little in the Texas Law Review between 1970 and articles (former Justice C.L. Ray and Yogi interest, since most of our state's school 1989 were cited by federal courts more McKelvey, Judge David Hittner, Harvard publications are too new or too provincial often than all the state's other law reviews Law Prof. Arthur R. Miller, and Circuit to make the national law review hit parades. combined. On the other hand, the Texas Judge Edith Jones, to name a few of the Fortunately, a decent Texas-oriented statis- Law Review drops to a distant sixth place in more recent), the news should come as no tical study has moved to fill this gap. citations by state court judges. This show- surprise to anyone who has tried to cite any Laura Justiss (formerly of Locke, ing confirms the derogatory mutterings article printed in the South Texas Law Purnell, now with Mead Data) recently did sometimes heard in the hallways of Texas Journal prior to 1985. a cite count of seven Texas-published law courthouses (or even, rumor has it, in For some obscure reason, the editors of reviews as part of a master's degree pro- impromptu remarks by a former Texas the first 25 volumes of the South Texas Law gram. The results of her study were rescued Supreme Court chief justice at one Texas Journal did not follow the near-universal 284 Texas Bar Journal March 1993 law review practice of including the volume space. The SMU Law Review may also be number and year on the running head. worth keeping on the shelves, at least so Viewed from the perspective of a judge or long as the editors continue to produce the briefing clerk who discovers this quaint lit- "annual survey" issue. And the Texas Law tle custom late at night while reading from Review may be attractive if one has a sub- a xerox copy, with the choice of going back stantial federal practice. DON'T DO IT!! to the library or of just not including a cita- Of course, no study of law review cita- tion, it is a minor miracle that articles from tions can provide an answer to the question Don't take chances with deposi- the first quarter-century of the South Texas of how influential law reviews really are. Law Journal have been cited at all. By the For one thing, courts represent only one tion and statement summaries way, we have done a quick count of cita- branch of our tripartite system of govern- prepared by college students or tions in the 1986-91 period, being the first ment. Who can say what influence the con- professional "readers." All sum- five years after South Texas added running tinuing Baylor Law Review series on maries at J.D. SUMMARIES are heads, and found that the journal rises to a administrative law might be having on prepared by a licensed attorney. middle-of-the-pack fourth place position. Texas administrative agencies? And what One interesting aspect of Justiss' study is "significance" does one assign to a Texas the change in standing that she finds when Tech Law Review article that advocates leg- DO CALL the citation figures are corrected for the islative change, a change that was adopted J.D. SUMMARIES today and total number of pages in each volume of the at the next session after the article was pub- find out about the quality services law review. Different schools' law reviews lished? Such an article will rarely, if ever, put out a different number of pages per be cited by courts. Yet it might have had we offer, including: fast turn- year, from the Baylor Law Review's 1,000 more real-world impact than any two or around, 24-hour rush service, or so undersized pages to the Texas Law three dozen court citations. pickup/delivery to Downtown and Review's 1,500-plus. Standardized by "cita- Even limiting the question to the courts, Galleria areas, mail-in discounts, tions per 1,000 pages of text," a couple of the fact that a judge may cite a law review plus competitive prices.