The Volokh Conspiracy - Questions for Specialty Journal Editors:

I've talked to some people who are considering setting up specialty journals, and given them some advice (usually cautioning them that it's very hard to get such a journal off the ground and make it successful). But I thought it would be good to get some feedback from people who have actually worked on such journals.

If you have such recent experience (say, in the last five years), could you please post something that includes the following:

A rough sense of your journal's subject matter and the ranking of your law school. If you want to keep your journal's name out of it, a rough ranking (e.g. "the school is in the #11-20 range in the U.S. News list") and the subject matter would be just fine.
Your sense of the quality of the articles that you managed to get.
Some things your journal has done that improve the quality of the articles that you get (e.g., running symposia, if you did that and you thought that was helpful, having a subject matter that is for some reason unreasonably looked down on by higher-ranked journals, and so on).
Your sense of the value of the experience to you, as educationally, as a credential, and as a fun project, whether or not you thought that the journal got to publish very good articles.
Whatever other thoughts you might have on the subject.

Many thanks!

	[Eugene Volokh, July 9, 2009 at 2:00pm] Trackbacks Questions for Specialty Journal Editors: I've talked to some people who are considering setting up specialty journals, and given them some advice (usually cautioning them that it's very hard to get such a journal off the ground and make it successful). But I thought it would be good to get some feedback from people who have actually worked on such journals. If you have such recent experience (say, in the last five years), could you please post something that includes the following: A rough sense of your journal's subject matter and the ranking of your law school. If you want to keep your journal's name out of it, a rough ranking (e.g. "the school is in the #11-20 range in the U.S. News list") and the subject matter would be just fine. Your sense of the quality of the articles that you managed to get. Some things your journal has done that improve the quality of the articles that you get (e.g., running symposia, if you did that and you thought that was helpful, having a subject matter that is for some reason unreasonably looked down on by higher-ranked journals, and so on). Your sense of the value of the experience to you, as educationally, as a credential, and as a fun project, whether or not you thought that the journal got to publish very good articles. Whatever other thoughts you might have on the subject. Many thanks!