Althouse: "What Is the Cost of a Law Review Article by a Top Prof?"

April 21, 2011

"What Is the Cost of a Law Review Article by a Top Prof?"

"Estimate Is $100K."

13 comments:

bagoh20 said...: It's that high because the assumption is that's all the prof accomplishes with his time, but don't they typically take out the garbage and cut the grass between classes and on weekends?; 4/21/11, 8:03 PM
David said...: I will comment before reading the bullshit article.

Bullshit.; 4/21/11, 8:13 PM
Patrick said...: Just goes to show the often wide gulf between cost and value.; 4/21/11, 8:14 PM
David said...: Richard Neumann.

Hello, Neumann.

"Neumann argued that expensive research doesn’t necessarily benefit students who end up paying for the articles through their tuition, the story says."

Maybe. His point is that 43% of law review articles never get cited. (Does this include student work?) Anyway, there is benefit in the writing to the Professor, who learns an area of law better by researching and writing about it. Better informed professors benefit the students.

It also benefits the student assistants who help prof. research the article, and the student law review editors who (presumably) edit them.

As a law review editor, I learned a great deal by editing the work of others. It was the most relevant experience I had for law practice. I also learned a lot by acting as a student assistant to a outstanding professor, and helping him with research. This professor has been a prolific writer for his entire career, and is much cited in his field. However, the benefit of his research to students over the last 40 (!) years has had little to do with his citation rate. It's been his increase in knowledge, and the opportunity of students to work with him that created benefit.

Neumann is looking for some publicity.; 4/21/11, 8:26 PM
shiloh said...: cost and value.

"supply and demand" is more cogent. Just ask mama grizzly, Kate Gosselin, Kim Kardashian, Charlie Sheen etc.

A fool and his money are soon parted!; 4/21/11, 8:28 PM
Unknown said...: How much for a blog post by a top law prof?; 4/21/11, 8:28 PM
traditionalguy said...: So if I read you right, the Law Review article is free. It is the Prof's salary and benefits yhat are attributed to the article as if that is a cost. That is like saying the Army going to a war zone costs us all of the salaries that they would have been paid anyway if they had stayed at home. OK.; 4/21/11, 9:02 PM
Jose_K said...: Since the cost is calculated on the basis of one article/year, Sunstein and Posner^s àrticles cost less than 1k; 4/21/11, 10:41 PM
chickelit said...: Wow, that first comment by "Seasoned Lawyer" in the linked article is spot-on.; 4/21/11, 11:25 PM
Zach said...: $100,000 doesn't sound unreasonable for half a year of a tenured professor at a major school, plus staff and overhead. Could you hire someone of comparable reputation for less?; 4/22/11, 1:37 AM
Zach said...: I also kind of doubt that you get to be a tenured law professor at a major school by writing the kind of papers that average less than one citation.; 4/22/11, 1:39 AM
Stephen said...: If we are talking strict calculus of value to students, we'd want to know what career value/marketability bonus to each student results from having more widely published and respected profs vs. less widely published and respected profs (who presumably teach more units)and what the real incremental cost to the student of each article is (which is a function of whether and how much spending on faculty salaries would decline in a more teaching/fewer articles model)and whether that decline would get passed on as lower tuition. A lot of steps to the analysis.; 4/22/11, 2:27 PM
AST said...: It takes a special person to split hairs so fine nobody else can see them and focus on details so boring they would put most ordinary people into a coma. A Top Prof can argue eight sides of the case of Frankie and Johnny before breakfast with citations and footnotes.

Why all that is valuable still eludes me. It's like pole sitting, impressive but not all that useful to society.; 4/22/11, 11:22 PM