This discussion seems mostly among graduate students and young professors (as far as I can tell; the posts on the forum are all anonymous). Here is a sample:
Anyone who has ever submitted a law review article knows it is a complete joke. You can send it to 100 journals at once, it is barely reviewed by law students, there is no word limit, and the revision process is nowhere near as rigorous. You can lie to yourself, but it is a waste of good scholarship to publish in law reviews.
And another:
If you have multiple books and peer reviewed articles, then go for it on law reviews. I agree it is a way to reach another audience. But if you are starting out your career as a political scientist, beware of wasting your time and good ideas on something that everyone knows is not remotely close to the peer review process. During the law review submission you can click on as many reviews as you want to send it to. It is impossible to get rejected. This doesn't mean there aren't good law review articles, or that good scholars don't publish in law journals, but you would be a fool to do so pre tenure.
And one more:
Ive published in both and wouldnt say one is better/harder than the other.
Law reviews arent as rigid on the type of reasoning used and sources cited, so long as citations are provided and detailed. They dont explain rejections. If youre accepted, you work with editors on revisions almost like an r and r process.
Political science journals are a lot more rigid on what methods are used and who gets cited, even if the choice of method doesnt affect results and many different references could be used to make same point.
Law reviews are more likely to accept quantitative analysis than political science journals are to accept legal reasoning.
What do academics think of lawyers as scholars? Law reviews and legal education are so wasteful and useless.
The "n" on that thread hardly qualifies as political scientists talking about law journals….
Jojo,
Anecdotally, when I applied to teach criminal law at a local community college, the department chair told me that a JD is not an academic degree and he doesn't consider it as a "real graduate work." Told me he would rather hire a copper with an MA teach. Further expressed his contempt for criminal lawyers like me. He noted you guys collect 5 bills from a poor client for a five minute morning court appearance and then knock off the rest of the day.