Should law reviews publish survey articles?

Tim Wu argues that they should. Survey or review articles, which summarize the state of research but do not make original contributions, are common in other fields, and as Wu explains, there are good reasons for them.

The problem with Wu’s proposal is that law reviews already publish survey articles. They are the first 40 or so pages of nearly every law review article, with the original contribution starting on p. 41. Scholars in other fields do not write articles in this way because they do not need to explain to editors–who are experienced scholars and also rely on referees who are experts on the topic–why their article is a contribution. Because law students screen law review articles, and law students do not know any legal scholarship, every author must start anew with yet another redundant survey that sets the stage for his contribution. So there is no demand for survey articles–if you want to read a survey of customary international law, just find the latest article on this topic and read the first forty pages–and so no reason for people to produce them.