Category: Legal Journals and Law Reviews

Open access in the Irish Times

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| Legal Journals and Law Reviews, Libraries, open access, Universities

Open Access logo, via Wikipedia.I have written several times on this blog about open access journals, and I have re-posted some of the wickedly funny cartoons served up daily by Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD). Open access journals are the focus of PhD’s cartoon yesterday (it’s too big to repost here, but click through and enjoy – then come back here for the rest of this post!) (update: I’m not the only one who has used this cartoon as a jumping off point to discuss the future of online scientific publications – Lukas Ahrenberg does too). In one of those rare cases of serendipity which the universe’s roll of the dice can throw up, Quinn Norton has an excellent introductory piece on open access in yesterday’s Irish Times; here are some extracts (with added links):

Open Access leads the way in promoting academic research

WIRED : Scholars are embracing the internet to bypass publishers and speed the process of research

… In the mid-1990s Peter Suber, a research professor of philosophy at Earlham College in the US, got on the internet and learned how to make web pages. Like many in academia, he decided to post his papers.

…

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New Open Source Law Journal

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| Cyberlaw, Legal Journals and Law Reviews, open access

FSFE logo, via the FSFE website.The European Legal Network, a professional network of legal experts facilitated by the Freedom Task Force which promotes free software licensing as part of the work of the Free Software Foundation Europe, has just announced the launch of the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review. It is a peer reviewed biannual journal for high-level analysis and debate about Free and Open Source Software legal issues, and it will receive financial and administrative support from the NLNet Foundation, which supports organizations and people that contribute to an open information society. Edited by Andrew Katz and Amanda Brock, its focus includes copyright, licence implementation, licence interpretation, software patents, open standards, case law and statutory changes. Unsurprisingly, it operates a strong Open Access Policy, providing immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Open Source Logo, via the OSI website.Given recent developments relating to Creative Commons licences for Ireland, I was particularly taken by two pieces in the first issue discussing Jacobsen v Katzer and Kamind Associates 535 F.3d 1373 (Fed.Cir.2008) (pdf), in which the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted a preliminary injunction to enforce the terms of the OSI‘s open source Artistic Licence (see JOLT | Lessig | OSI | Stanford CIS; Brian F Fitzgerald and Rami Olwan “The legality of free and open source software licences: the case of Jacobsen v.…

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Ranking law journals

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| Legal Education, Legal Journals and Law Reviews

ARC logo, via their site.The Australian Research Council has recently completed its consultation process to develop ranking tables for journals. Controversy led to the Humanities and Creative Arts list being unavailable for a time after publication, but it seems to be available now. The ranking is in four divisions: A*, A, B and C (and there is a nice explanation here). However unfortunate such a development may be, given the way in which university life is developing internationally, it is inevitable that such tables will be developed and will have an impact.

The law journals have been extracted from the humanities list by the ever-industrious Simon Fodden on Slaw. …

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Back to the future of law reviews?

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| General, Legal Journals and Law Reviews, open access

Library stacks, via Concurring OpinionsThere are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content.

Fred Rodell “Goodbye to Law Reviews” 23 Virginia Law Review 38 (1936) at 38.


Leaving aside their citation styles, there may be a third problem with law reviews: their paper format. The Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship, calling for the wholesalde abandonment of paper in favour of exclusively online publication, has been causing a small stir of late:

Objective: The undersigned believe that it will benefit legal education and improve the dissemination of legal scholarly information if law schools commit to making the legal scholarship they publish available in stable, open, digital formats in place of print. To accomplish this end, law schools should commit to making agreed-upon stable, open, digital formats, rather than print, the preferable formats for legal scholarship. If stable, open, digital formats are available, law schools should stop publishing law journals in print and law libraries should stop acquiring print law journals. ….

See Berkman | Goodson Blogson | Law Librarian Blog | Legal Research Plus | Legal Writing Prof Blog | Library Boy. This is not a new claim, and I agree that this kind of approach represents the future of law reviews, but this call strikes me as premature.…

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The future of law reviews

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| Legal Education, Legal Journals and Law Reviews, open access

HLS logo, via JLA site.HUP logo, via JLA site.It seems that sales of paper law reviews and journals are declining. For example, the Harvard Law Review had 8,760 subscribers for its 1979/1980 volume, but only 2,610 for its 2007/2008 volume. Now, via Volokh and Ambrogi, I learn of the appearance of the Journal of Legal Analysis, published by Harvard University Press.

It is a welcome departure in many directions. It is faculty edited, rather than student-edited; the latter is the norm in the US, but is regarded with some skepticism in the outside world. It is peer reviewed, with judgments being made on the quality of a piece not by the student editors but by experts in the relevant fields. It requires exclusive submission, which is the norm outside the US, but very different to the games in which authors and student-editors currently indulge to barter better placements. It is a general journal, publishing articles from all disciplinary perspectives and in all styles, rather than being confined to a specific legal field or theoretical approach. And, in an excellent development which will surely come to be seen as a some kind of apostasy, it has eschewed the Bluebook for a very minimalist house-style. Finally, it is open, free, digital: the articles will be published on a bespoke open-source platform and made fully available under a Creative Commons licence [specifically Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported] as soon as they are ready for publication.…

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Legal Citation

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| Law, Legal Journals and Law Reviews, Libraries, plagiarism

University of Oxford Crest, via the Law Faculty website.The Oxford Standard for Citation Of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) is fast establishing itself as the UK’s standard system of legal citation. It is at present undergoing revision, and the Editors welcome comments and suggestions by email before the end of the month.

It is important to disclose sources (not least to avoid charges of plagiarism), in as complete a fashion as will allow a reader to find the source easily. Systematic citation methods allow for accurate, comprehensive and consistent citation of references such as cases, statutes, books, articles, and so on; and, in the legal context, they will also provide valuable information about a case, such as when it was decided, the level of decision, and so on. There are many possible citation systems, of which Harvard maintains a very useful list of paper-based resources.

Cover of the 18th edition of the Bluebook, via its website.However, one citation system stands out, and this is one situation where you really can judge a book by its cover: the Standard System of American Legal Citation is universally called The Bluebook, because of the colour (or, I suppose, the color) of its cover (pictured right; see its wikipedia page). It was first published in 1926 (pdf); it is now in its eighteenth edition; and Peter Martin’s online Introduction to Basic Legal Citation (Cornell Legal Information Institute) is based on it.…

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