Selection for law review membership is usually based on a combination of students' grades, their performance on a short article-writing competition, as well as an examination on Bluebook legal citation rules.
[citation needed] For example, Justice Stanley Mosk of the Supreme Court of California admitted that he got the idea for market share liability from the Fordham Law Review comment cited extensively in the court's landmark decision in Sindell v. Abbott Laboratories (1980).
[6] A 2012 study found that the Supreme Court has increased its use of citing law journals and reviews over the last 61 years in majority, concurring or dissenting opinions, especially for important or difficult cases, despite claims by some judges to the contrary.
[7] In addition to rankings that measure impact factor, a number of methods can be used to assess the notability of a law review.
A professor at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication averages the annual rankings of: the Washington and Lee University Law School rankings,[8] the average US News Peer Reputation score from the last 10 years, the average ranking of the School in US News of the last 10 years, and Google Scholar metrics for all Law reviews in the United States.
He also argued that faculty-run journals are generally better at aspects including article selection and editing interdisciplinary papers.
[citation needed] In Belgium, the oldest and most prominent student-edited law review is Jura Falconis.
[citation needed] The articles in the leading law reviews in France are written by academics and lawyers, the principal editors are Dalloz, LexisNexis, Lamy Liaisons [fr] (part of the international Wolters Kluwer group) and Francis Lefebvre [fr].
It is a project sponsored by Bocconi School of Law and is published by a group of students belonging to the same institution, under the supervision of several faculty advisors.
[16] They adopted the format of a working paper series, as a way to complement – rather than compete with – peer-reviewed publications and offer scholars an additional round of feedback.
[16] The University of Bologna Law Review is a student-run law journal published by the Department of Legal Studies of the University of Bologna, and officially sponsored by Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP and the International Chamber of Commerce - Italy.
[non-primary source needed] In the Netherlands, Ars Aequi [nl] is one of the few general legal journals.
[citation needed] Ars Aequi [nl] has published its Black Issue in 1970, criticizing legal aid.
Úlfljótur Law Review is the most senior of all academic journals still in publication at the university and held in great respect by Icelandic jurists and legal scholars.
Juridisk Publikation is edited by top students from the law schools in Lund, Stockholm Uppsala, Gothenborg and Umeå.
The publication is anonymously peer reviewed by a board of leading Swedish legal practitioners and academics.
Within the United Kingdom, as in much of the Commonwealth outside North America (a notable exception being Australia), all of the leading law reviews are edited and run by academics.
The China Law Journal is an attempt to create a legal publication, that is produced from all groups related to law, including lawyers, academics, students, members of the judiciary, procurators and anyone else in related fields with an interest in China.
[citation needed] Online legal research providers such as Westlaw and LexisNexis give users access to the complete text of most law reviews published beginning from the late 1980s.
The write-on competition usually requires applicants to compose a written analysis of a specific legal topic, often a recent Supreme Court decision.
The editorial staff is normally responsible for reviewing and selecting articles for publication, managing the editing process, and assisting members in writing their notes and comments.
These treatises were written by eminent scholars of the era but had diminishing relevance to a newly founded nation.
The treatise format was also unsuited to communicate the rapid decisions of a young court system to an expanding population of lawyers.
[22] By the 1850s a number of legal periodicals had arisen in the US[23] which "typically highlighted recent court decisions, local news, and editorial comments".
Despite its short lifespan, the Jurist is credited with inspiring creation of the Harvard Law Review, first published in 1887.
It continues today as on-line only daily legal news service with analysis contributed by lawyers and the publication's journalists.
[30] The success of the Harvard Law Review provided a model that was followed by later journals: faculty-written articles solicited and published by student editors.
[citation needed] Other contemporary journals were launched by faculty with varying degrees of student input including Dickinson Law Review in 1897.
[citation needed] Some law reviews also consider race, gender, and other demographic characteristics of all or a portion of prospective editors in order to increase the diversity of the journal’s membership.