New to law review? 5 things you need to know

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Getting elected to law review often starts with a period of elation. “I’m now a member of a prestigious editorial board!” Yes, you are, and kudos!

But that can sometimes be followed by uncertainty. “Wait, I’ve never done this before. Where do I start?!”

First, know that any jitters you feel are totally normal. No one enters law review as an expert, and that’s a positive! Every time an e-board transition occurs, it ushers in fresh perspectives and opportunities for improvement. The challenge you face, dear editor, is getting quickly acquainted with your law review’s internal processes and pinpointing where and how you may be able to optimize things before the submission deluge begins.

From streamlining article selection to attracting higher quality submissions to reaching more readers online, it’s time to make your mark. Ready to get started? Here are tips to help!

Get trained asap

We can’t over-emphasize this first point enough! It’s imperative to get an overview of how your law review currently operates and how to use your Scholastica account so you’re not trying to figure things out as you go.

A good starting point is asking your predecessors to share a high-level breakdown of their article selection and publishing processes (i.e., an ordered list or flowchart of all the steps they took to review articles and publish those they accepted). If they don’t have that kind of documentation handy, we have a Scholastica template they can use to create it! Then, review those materials and schedule a knowledge transfer meeting to go over any questions you have.

Once you’ve met with your outgoing e-board, we encourage you to schedule a Scholastica training to get acquainted with the system (it’s free for all e-boards and fast!). We also cover how to prepare for law review article selection using Scholastica (including links to help docs and overview videos) in this blog post.

Set SMART goals

Once you’ve completed the above law review training steps, you’ll be ready to explore opportunities to improve current processes and set related goals. We recommend using the SMART framework to ensure those goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

You may want to make decisions on all submissions in under five days. But is that achievable? You get the drift…

You can review the past article selection analytics in your Scholastica account to set data-backed objectives. We automatically track core publication and editor-level stats, including submission volume, time to decision, average assignments per editor, and more.

Below are a couple of examples of possible SMART goals:

1. Speed up article selection to process submissions in under two weeks on average instead of four
2. Get a 10% increase in submissions during the spring article selection cycle

Once you’ve identified realistic goals, it’s time to determine strategies and tactics to achieve them. Working with the first example above, which is a common goal we hear at Scholastica, some actionable ways to speed up article selection include identifying and eliminating workflow redundancies, creating a submission grading rubric to perform cursory article reviews faster (this Scholastica worksheet can help), and having two to three editors pre-screen all incoming submissions to determine if they meet core rubric criteria and separate promising submissions from definite nos. For that last pre-screening step, you can even configure your Scholastica account to have all articles evenly assigned among a group of specific editors automatically.

Now that we’ve covered what to do in goal setting, here are our top three no-nos. Don’t set a goal dependent on a project that:

1. Will take more than 6 months
2. Your next board has to plan and execute
3. You’re not 100% confident you’ll be able to finish

Basically, this all comes back to the achievable and timebound aspects of the SMART framework.

Prioritize prompt author communication

Did you read this section header? Can you please read it again?! Being responsive to authors is the most crucial best practice every law review should follow, yet so many fail to do it! Things get crazy during submission season, especially while juggling schoolwork. So it’s understandable that law reviews may sometimes fall behind on author communication. But we are here to tell you that ignoring inquiries from authors is a big mistake. We encourage your law review to pledge to put author communication above all else.

There are 3 main communication categories you’ll need to keep in mind:

1. Acceptance letters
2. Rejection letters
3. Submission status updates

Most law reviews are quick to send acceptance letters. However, in our experience, many law reviews are notorious for not sending rejection letters. That might be because the editors don’t want to hurt authors’ feelings or feel too busy to send rejections. Please don’t fall into either camp!

On the first point, you should know that authors like getting rejection letters (or, at least, prefer it to radio silence). Think about it — when you were applying to law schools, would you be happy if the ones that rejected you never told you (so you were left wondering if they got your application at all)? We think not.

Onto the second issue, lack of time, we promise you won’t need to devote more than a few minutes per week to sending rejections. With Scholastica, you can easily send multiple rejection letters at once. Just write up a rejection letter template, select the manuscripts you want to decline, and use our quick reject feature to notify those authors simultaneously. Sending rejections is an easy and effective way to be respectful toward authors and increase the odds that they’ll submit to your law review again.

Now that we’ve covered acceptance and rejection letters, what about status updates?

You probably won’t have time to send authors individual updates as their articles move through your review stages (though, if you can, go for it!). However, in cases where you anticipate a delay in sending a decision on an article beyond what you determine to be a reasonable waiting period (3-5 weeks is a good rule of thumb), it is best practice to let the corresponding author know to assure them you didn’t overlook their submission and that it will be processed. To improve your chances of snagging top submissions, you may also want to consider alerting authors if and when their articles go to full board review (incentive for them to hold out for your answer!).

Make a plan for managing expedite requests

As you’re mapping out policies and processes for prompt author communication, take some time to determine how your e-board will handle expedited decision requests (i.e., when authors notify a law review of a pending offer and ask the e-board to decide on their article before that offer expires). Some law reviews like to extend expedited decisions to ensure they don’t miss out on top pieces. Whereas some law reviews prefer to stick to the same timeline for reviewing all articles.

To allow expedites or not? There’s no “right” answer — it’s up to your team. Just be sure to take the appropriate steps for whatever you decide:

• If you choose to allow expedites, enable the option in your Scholastica settings and designate one or more AEs to respond to expedites as they come in
• If you’d rather not allow expedites, disable the option in your Scholastica settings so authors don’t send them by mistake

Additionally, consider adding a brief note to your authors guidelines explaining your expedite stance. Authors will appreciate the context.

Grow your digital presence

Law reviews tend to be time-honored publications, so you may have traditional ways of publishing that your e-board wants to keep in place, such as distributing printed issues. But that doesn’t mean you should rule out innovation. We live in a digital world, and it’s essential to keep up with the times to stay competitive. That includes offering an engaging online reading experience (desktop and mobile!) and leveraging digital promotion opportunities to help your law review and the authors you work with reach more readers.

Harkening back to the process optimization advice above, you’ll want to identify SMART goals to pursue. For example, you might aim to:

• Transition your law review to a modern website template (like Scholastica’s publishing platform — shameless plug!) during your board’s next off-season, such as after the busy August-October submission rush
• Establish a law review social media presence, such as creating a Bluesky account, and post there once per week
• Launch a law review blog and publish one post a month

If you’re looking for inspiration, we cover five digital-first publishing practices law reviews are starting to adopt and the benefits for legal scholars in this blog post.

When embarking on new digital ventures, remember that things like building a social media following or blog readership will take time. Encourage your team to stay the course! As you gain traction in any digital growth area you pursue, you’ll attract authors’ attention and incentivize them to read and submit to your publication. Test out ideas, learn from what works and what doesn’t, and keep forging forward!

That’s team Scholastica’s top advice for new law review editors. Did anything surprise you? Do you have specific goals in mind for this year? We’d love to hear about it. Post your thoughts in the comments section below. You can also find Scholastica on X (formerly Twitter) and Bluesky.