ABSTRACT
Today, law reviews sit near equilibrium: roughly 5,000 annual submissions for about 5,600 slots. Tomorrow, large language models are likely to drive output toward 8,000. The result is a systemic shortage of publication placements. Peer review will not emerge; instead, journals will lean more heavily on prestige heuristics, expand symposia, experiment with limited faculty input, and adopt technological triage. The core student-edited model will endure, but scarcity could revalue publication across the hierarchy, thereby raising the floor of prestige, elevating specialties, and turning abundance into a more competitive, plural, and consequential marketplace for legal scholarship. Hiring committees, promotion reviews, and tenure evaluations may adapt by revaluing placements outside the traditional elite.
Fagan, Frank, The Coming Law Review Shortage (November 5, 2025), Illinois Law Review Online (forthcoming 2025).
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