Even though some lawyers secretly scan law reviews in private, most haven’t looked at one since law school.  The reason for our massive revulsion toward law reviews is simple:  Total, abject, bordering on pathological, irrelevance to the real world. 

But Jeffrey Lipshaw’s  act of desperation at Concurring Opinions opens the window on the secret world of why academics work so incredibly hard to produce work of such utter pointlessness.  Jeff did the unthinkable for a scholar.  He wrote something informative.  Okay, not exactly informative for those who practice law, as that would constitute academic heresy and require him to tee off with his pants below his knees, but something that would be of interest to a select group of aging, experienced and (apparently) offensive practitioners.  Jeffrey produced “a 9,000 word essay on SSRN entitled “Memo to Lawyers: How Not to Retire and Teach.”   

Just stop it now.  Stop laughing, pick yourself up off the floor and settle down.  What would possibly make you think that he did something wrong, just because he used up 9,000 words when 2,496 would do?  He’s a professor, for goodness sake.  Get a grip.

The abstract (a mere 4,239 words [only kidding]) is just the sort of teaser that makes you want to gobble up every word of it.

Many long-time practitioners muse about what it might be like to retire and teach, not realizing there is no more galvanizing phrase to their counterparts who have long toiled in the academy, nor one less likely to enhance the prospects of the unfortunate seasoned applicant who utters the phrase. I intend this essay not for law professors (though it may either amuse or irritate them), but for those in the practice who aspire, after all these years, to return to the academy. With a good deal of humility acquired along the way, I offer some realistic advice to job seekers, concluding that wistful phrase is precisely the opposite of the true sine qua non of success: demonstrating the capability of, and commitment to, being a productive scholar.

So what’s the problem?  It’s been downloaded “well over 1,300 times, making it the number 8 all-time paper in the Legal Education journal. At one point over the summer, it was number 4 in all of SSRN.”  This is a hot property, right?  Well, apparently not.

Jeffrey’s piece has been rejected over and over by law reviews nationwide.  He probably has a better chance of getting into the Guinness Book of World Records for most rejected law review article than having this tome see the light of day.  So finally, shedding all vestiges of pride, he begs:

Any law review editor looking to fill out a volume with something that people actually read and spare me any more sheepish responses ought to drop me a note.

I feel quite badly for Jeffrey, but I believe I may have an explanation for why such a fine piece of scholarship has failed to grab any law review editor by the scruff of his Abercrombie & Fitch shirt collar.  I offer this in the spirit of camaraderie, and because I, as a detached and neutral observer, can spot the fly in the ointment.

Jeffrey, the problem isn’t you or your essay.  The problem is that law review editors are 12 years old and, despite their firm belief that they have their dirty little fingers on the pulse of the legal nation, don’t have a clue what anyone who isn’t deeply concerned with who will win “America’s Next Top Model” wants to read.  These kids have delusions that under their watch, an article that will force a paradigm shift in America jurisprudence will jettison them from unknown law student to the frontrunner for the next opening on the Supreme Court.

There is no child more pompous and self-important than one with the power to smack a lawprof upside the head by turning down publication his work for publication because it failed to meet his idea of worthiness.  This is the first step to legal prominence, just like their mommies told them.  Sure, they will eventually get their ticket, but it unlikely that they will ever get on the bus to the courthouse.  So why would anything so mundane as the practice of law, or the transition out of it, hold any interest for them at all? 

Your offering, Jeffrey, is custom made for a butt-whupping.  An essay about old lawyers?  Why not an essay about courtroom fashions in the 1970s while you’re at it.  This means nothing to law review editors.  While old time lawyers (like me when I get older) may find your essay fascinating, that’s only because we have shoes older than these law review editors. 

So here’s my advice.  Change the retiring lawyer part to three playboy playmates, known benignly as the “Girls Next Door,” analogizing their televised shenanigans to the long-time practice of law, and comparing and contrasting the relative merits of cosmetic surgery to scholarship, and I guarantee you get published.  No need to thank me.  I’ve just got my finger on the pulse of youth.