Ranking Law Journals by Submissions

Just as I was working on this post, I saw my good friend Dan Filler's latest over at co-op on the new Bepress ranking of law journals. By way of background, Bepress ranks jounrals based on the number of submissions their expresso delivery service processes for each jounral. I've written a little bit about this before over at propertyprof.

NYU is number one because they got the most submissions through Bepress, not because they have the most citations in recent years. How did NYU Law Review arrive at the number one spot? By requiring electronic submissions through Bepress, of course. NYU Law Review's behavior seems at least slightly unfortunate. They're driving people to use bepress' expresso delivery service, which is in the opinion of some, expensive. Moreover, law reviews probably ought to be doing whatever they can to get their hands on good work, rather than restricting the methods of submission.