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63 Wash. L. Rev. 221 (1988)
The Evaluation of Legal Scholarship

handle is hein.journals/washlr63 and id is 233 raw text is: THE EVALUATION OF LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP Philip C. Kissam* all literature is to me me** Gertrude Stein Researchers, readers, academic committees, law school deans, research agencies, and editors of publications frequently evaluate works of legal scholarship. As manifest in the many writings on con- temporary legal scholarship, this evaluation process has become more contentious and less certain.' The immediate causes of this fragmenta- tion are not difficult to determine. They include a new diversity in types of legal scholarship,' the rising expectations of administrators and promotion committees that law faculty publish often and in pres- tigious places, a dramatic expansion in the quantity of legal scholar- ship, and the consequent competition for publication in prestigious journals and books.3 We have evaluated legal scholarship traditionally on an implicit basis with unquestioned* assumptions about the values, purposes, and methods of this scholarship. Typically, we assume that scholarship should focus on legal doctrine, employ conventional methods of legal analysis and argument, and be useful to practitioners, or at least to appellate advocates and the courts.4 We also tend to evaluate scholar- * Professor of Law, University of Kansas; B.A. 1963, Amherst College; LL.B. 1968, Yale University. I am thankful to Sandy McKenzie, Peter Schanck, and Joan Wellman for their helpful comments on drafts of this paper and to Laura Fine and Kathy Reavis for their research assistance. Funds for this project were provided by the University of Kansas General Research Fund and the Gensman Fund, University of Kansas School of Law. ** Letter from Gertrude Stein to Edmund Wilson (Mar. 10, 1923), in 1 THE LETTERS OF GERTRUDE STEIN AND CARL VAN VECHTEN, 1913-35, at 88 n.1 (E. Bums ed. 1986). 1. See, eg., Carrington, Of Law and the River, 34 J. LEGAL EDUC. 222 (1984); Cramton, The Most Remarkable Institution'. The American Law Review, 36 J. LEGAL EDUC. 1 (1986); Fiss, The Death of the Law?, 72 CORNELL L. REV. 1 (1986); Nowak, Woe Unto You, Law Reviewsl, 27 ARIz. L. REV. 317 (1985); Tushnet, Truth, Justice, and the American Way: An Interpretation of Public Law Scholarship in the Seventies, 57 TEx. L. REV. 1307 (1979); Hutchinson, Indiana Dworkin and Law's Empire (Book Review), 96 YALE L.J. 637 (1987). 2. See, eg., R. STEVENS, LAW SCHOOL: LEGAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA FROM THE 1850's TO THE 1980's 270-75 (1983); American Legal Scholarship: Directions and Dilemmas, 33 J. LEGAL EDUC. 403 (1983); Critical Legal Histories, 36 STAN. L. REV. 57 (1984); Legal Scholarship: Its Nature and Purposes, 90 YALE L.J. 955 (1981). 3. See Kissam, The Decline of Law School Professionalism. 134 U. PA. L. REV. 251, 268-71 (1986). 4. See H. PACKER & T. EHRLICH, NEW DIRECTIONS IN LEGAL EDUCATION 32-33 (1972); Maggs, Concerning the Extent to Which the Law Review Contributes to the Development of the Law, 3 S. CAL. L. REV. 181, 183-84 (1930); Nowak, supra note 1, at 321-24; Rodell, Goodbye to

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