Yet More on Catholic Law Reviews

I've read Susan's, Richard's and Tom's comments on Catholic law reviews with interest. Naturally, this is an issue i have been involved with for a while, so I have some thoughts:

1. There is a need for venues to publish some of the kinds of things that some of us write. Articles heavy on explicit Catholic (or religious) content are often not of interest to most law reviews at both Catholic and secular law schools. This is not just because a particular position is substantively unacceptable (though it may be, such as a pro life position), but because all the god-talk is just unpalatable to many student editors. They don't grok it, as we used to say in the '60's. That being said, both secular and Catholic school journals from time to time will do symposia on faith and law, or religious lawyering and so on. There is, of course, always the estimable Journal of Law and Religion, and there is no shortage of places to publish on the traditional church/state issues. The problem is often when someone is writing from WITHIN a religious tradition, such as Catholicism, and focusing primarily on what a legal or jurisprudential question means within that tradition, and how it is solved within that tradition. It is true that most Catholic general/primary law reviews are not any more interested in that than a secular school journal, and may even be more wary, with the usual fears about a religious "takeover" etc. Notre Dame, St. Tommy, and Ave are notable exceptions. I will say, however, that this may be changing. Richard talked about the Creighton symposia; at Villanova the LRev publishes articles of the type I am describing thru our Giannella Lecture (see Cathy Kaveny's recent piece) and next year we will begin publishing annually in our Law Review (not the JCST) the papers from Patrick Brennan's new Scarpa Symposium, which will provide a Catholic take on legal philosophy and jurisprudence; and I am sure that there are some other examples. So long as those law reviews happily make some room for that kind of scholarship, I am undisturbed that most general law reviews in most Catholic law schools are publishing the same kinds of things as most other LRevs. That is also one of our functions as law schools. The question is whether all (or many) of them will do pub Catholic stuff at all, let alone happily.

2. That being said, I think we are starting to get lots of mileage out of our new specialty journals such as St John's new J. Cath Leg. Stud and Villanova's J. Cath. Soc. Thought, going into its fourth year. We are both looking explicitly for articles written from within the Tradition, which have limited appeal to most LRevs. I don't think it matters much whether they are the primary journal or not. The other advantage is that these journals can be peer-reviewed and edited journals, which legal ed needs. The VJCST falls in that category, tho we use some student help for bluebooking etc.

3. Before we all run out and start new journals, however, I will state a caution: we still do not have a critical mass of Catholic legal scholars around the country, in Catholic law schools or elsewhere, to generate a steady flow of work for  lot of such journals to publish. To be sure, we have come an immense distance in the last five years. Thru MOJ, the symposia around the country that Tom mentions, those of us who have been around for a while have found each other; we have identified and supported promising young people; and our interaction has stimulated much more work of the type I have described than was being done before. All of this is having an impact on hiring, the intellectual life of our law schools and much more. We have indeed become a movement. With these journals, we not only have platforms for pubs and symposia, we get students involved in what we are doing. This will all be supported by the planned national workshops on Catholic Social Teaching and the Law for law profs (more on that later). We are still a bit away from establishing a national critical mass, though I am confident we will get there soon.

--Mark