A Sign of the Apocalypse?
Ring the alarm! This just in, from the Harvard Crimson:
The Harvard Law Review is cited less and less in decisions by federal courts, in keeping with a trend across several major law reviews, according to a study published last month by staff at the Cardozo Law Review of Yeshiva University.
The researchers found that the Harvard journal was cited 4,410 times in federal courts during the 1970s, but only 1,956 in the 1990s, and 937 so far in this decade—despite an increase in the number of cases brought to courts.
It's 'cause judges are citing Wikipedia so much these days -- plus all those darn blogs....
Fewer Cases Cite Harvard Law Review [Harvard Crimson via How Appealing]
When Is It Appropriate to Cite to Wikipedia? [Concurring Opinions]
Courts Citing Blogs [Volokh Conspiracy]
(3) Comments
Lat: The vast number of comments demonstrates just how many people give a rat's ass about Harvard Law Review.
Gallion OUT
No surprise. The Harvard Law Review was created by an overachieving law student who wanted something to distinguish his c.v. from all the other overachieving HLS students. Then everyone else had to start/join a law review, too, since they couldn't possibly have c.v.'s missing such a 'prestigious' credential.
Then the professors realized that if they ceded control over all legal academia to the law reviews, they wouldn't have to do as much work. And the students would be willing to do all the work because they're all out to demostrate to their future employers that they're willing to do mind-numbingly boring and pointless work for hundreds of hours on end for nothing more than an extra line on their resume proving that they're willing to do mind-numbingly boring and pointless work for hundreds of hours on end.
Of course somehow everybody forgot that the law students who edit the law reviews don't really know much about law (which is why they're students and not professors) and that there's a reason just about every other academic field has peer-reviewed (instead of student-reviewed) academic journals.
But the professors' laziness and the students' unstoppable pursuit of 'pretige' trumped any legitimate academic concerns about the reviews.
Until it slowly dawned on the courts that the entire law review system is one big scam--not to be trusted.
Is Wikipedia really any less reliable than a law review edited by ladder-climbing student drones?
Or maybe its because the Harvard Law Review is citing to Wikipedia too! A snippet of 120 Harv. L. Rev. 799 (2007) reads:
"Today, approximately half of the states have English only laws, many of which restrict bilingual education.[73]"
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[73] Wikipedia, English-Only Movement, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement
(last visited Dec. 9, 2006).