True blind reviews would address much. Great point.

Is the “problem” really placement in top law reviews as a proxy for article quality, or is the problem that too many factors OTHER than quality get considered. While we may be skeptical of student ability to discern quality, I’ve talked to enough current and former editors at law schools to know that they can (for the most part) tell a good article from a bad one, but in the vast middle it is difficult to make choices about what to publish (and as a result topic selection, letterhead, expediting, etc.) becomes an issue.

Here’s another idea that might shake things up. All law reviews move to a blind selection system. Expresso (or some other clearinghouse) would gather each submission, give it an identifying number, and all other identifying information would be stripped. From there, the selection process could either work as it currently does, or some sort of a “match” system could be developed to avoid the multiple cycles of expediting.

It’s just a thought, but I wonder if the concerns about law review placement would be vastly alleviated in such a system.