On law reviews, blogs and scholarly diversity

Though not about sentencing, I am intrigued by the discussion kicked off by Rosa Brooks at LawCulture through this post about the inadequacies of law reviews and the future of legal scholarship.  Many others have already weighed in response (here and here and here), and Paul Horowitz's post "Scholarly Writing For...Whom?" is especially thought provoking.   In addition, Dan Solove has jumped in with an engaging entry over at Concurring Opinions that asks "Does Scholarly Writing Have to Be Tedious?"

I am intrigued by this dialogue in part because I am in the midst of developing a (non-tedious?) piece about the potential of blogs as a medium for legal scholarship.  (This piece hopes to build on some of the themes developed in my posts here and here exploring how blogs might be improved as an academic medium.)   Consequently, I especially like that Orin Kerr has this reaction to concerns about tedious legal scholarship: "Maybe the answer is more lawprof bloggers. Blogging pushes you to write clearly and simply; the format rewards clarity of expression more than traditional law review articles do."

Here I want to spotlight the concept and value of diversity in considering these issues.  I have the good fortune to edit two peer-review journals — the Federal Sentencing Reporter and the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law — which, through their distinctive structures, address in different ways some of the problems with traditional law reviews noted in this blogospheric dialogue.  New technologies make it cheaper and more efficient to experiment with distinctive fora for scholarly expressions (consider, e.g., SSRN which is also now, as seen here and here and here, generating blog debate).  In my view, the legal academic community ought to continue to explore and embrace new forms of traditional scholarly fora (like different kinds of law journals) and also radical new scholarly fora (like blogs).

Moreover, my own experience with this blog and other forms of scholarship leads me to believe that there cannot and should not be one-size-fits-all answers to the issues and questions being raised.  For some topics at some moments, the traditional law review form may be ideal.  See, e.g., the OSJCL's recent symposium issue reflecting on the Warren Court's Criminal Justice Revolution.  For other topics at some moments, a tweaked law review form may be ideal.  See, e.g., the Stanford Law Review's recent sentencing reform issue.  For still other topics, a whole new model may be appropriate.  See, e.g., the always timely issues considered at Legal Affairs' Debate Club.

UPDATE: Rosa Brooks has followed up with this interesting addition to all the law review/scholarship buzzing.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I am intrigued and pleased to now see that Ann Althouse has jumped into this discussion with this post entitled "Blogging as an alternative to law reviews -- and as a model for them."  It appears as though Ann's views have evolved somewhat since last August when she seemed to scoff at my exploration of how we might improve blogs as an academic medium.