Law Review Readership--What Makes Students Tick

• Author: Ergun Burcin
• Position: Is a third year student at the University of Victoria, Faculty of Law
• Pages: 1-6

APPEAL VOLUME 13 n 1

INTRODUCTION

LAW REVIEW READERSHIP – WHAT MAKES

STUDENTS TICK

By Burcin Ergun*

CITED: (2008) 13 Appeal 1-6

INTRODUCTION

Founded in 1993, Appeal is a student-run journal dedicated to publishing student legal

writing. In publishing this thirteenth volume, the editors were plagued with questions that

student editors across Canada are all too familiar with. What types of articles do we want to

publish? Who is our audience? How can we create student interest? Are there topics that are

overwritten? Lastly, and most importantly, how can we get students to read more of Appeal?

There are many audiences for a law journal, and they include academics, practitioners,

students and the judiciary. The fact that law journals are cited in judgments has been well

documented. One study has found that the University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review alone

was cited in forty-nine judgments in courts across Canada by the year 2001.1 This, however,

is only one of the benef‌its of the law review. There are many other, perhaps more important,

advantages to keeping alive the law review. Some of these include prestige for the law school,

advancement of the law through the accumulation of knowledge and debate, and last, but not

least, the pure experience that student editors gain in publishing such a review.

This rosy image however, is only one side of the coin. The debate on the future of student

run journals and their usefulness for practitioners is a “hot” discussion even today and has been

the topic of many such articles.2

Thus, we are faced with the question of publishing as an educational experience in itself

that does not need some greater good as compared to publishing articles that will be consid-

ered by courts and practitioners. Professor Hutchinson is critical of the view that academic

work should serve the end goal of judicial needs, the results of which are measured through

the number of judicial citations. He argues that scholars owe their allegiance to academia, not

the courts, and should engage in work that has critical bite and intrinsic value.3 On the other

* Burcin Ergun is a third year student at the University of Victoria, Faculty of Law. Burcin has a background in marketing

research and undertook this study for the Appeal Law Review in November, 2007.

1 Patricia McMahon, “Canadian Judicial Citations of Articles Published in the University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review”

(2001) 59 U.T. Fac. L. Rev 367 at 5.

2 For an excellent bibliography on the role of law reviews and the surrounding debate, see Tracie Scott, “The Role of the Law

Review: A Select Bibliography” (2001) 39 Alta. L. Rev. 690.

3 Allan Hutchinson “The Role of Judges in Legal Theory and the Role of Legal Theorists in Judging” (2001) 39 Alta. L. Rev.

657 - 667 cited in Bruce Ziff, “The Canadian Law Review Experience; Introduction to the Symposium” (2001) 39 Alta. L.

Rev. 611at 8 [Ziff].