Latest law review?

So, have you noticed that some student-run law reviews tend to run, um, a little behind? I was just mentioning to someone that an article of mine that was supposed to come out in the summer of 2009 has still not yet appeared in print. This is frustrating, especially when the article is somewhat timely in its substance, and especially when the student editors go for long periods without communicating about the status of the issue. But one year late could hardly be a record. What is your personal record?

Comments

[JimmyL]

I attended a law review conference a few years ago as a law review editor. One of the journals there said they were a full two years behind.

[Tim Zinnecker]

I've been rather fortunate with timely publication. But what I do notice is that the actual publication date is sometimes several months "ahead" of the issue date (perhaps better rephrased, the issue date can be several months "behind" the actual publication date). For example, I might have an article timely published in March 2010 in an issue marked "Summer 2009."

Query whether, in response to your post, anyone tries to negotiate a "drop dead" date into the publication contract, after which the author should feel free to find a new home for the article.

[anon]

Thanks for posting this - I am new to academia and have been a little stressed out about the tardiness of the publication of several of my articles. When I was in law school (not that long ago), if our law review said we published in Spring 2010, the issue was published before we graduated the 3Ls on staff in May. My concern right now is that the students I have been communicating with are graduating, and presumably moving on to bar review, jobs, etc... what now? Presumably rising 3Ls will now assume responsibility for editing and publishing my piece, but nonetheless, the lack of communication is indeed frustrating.

[Jacqui Lipton]

I've had two years one time and three years one other time. Actually, I think I had two years twice (two different journals).

[Jonathan H. Adler]

Hmmm . . . this sounds eerily familiar.

Law reviews often run behind, but this often just makes our lead time equivalent to that in many other disciplines.

As for my longest, I had an encyclopedia contribution that was accepted (and for which I was paid) for a volume that then did not come out for five or six years.

JHA

[Tamara Piety]

I have had the misfortune to have had several articles take about 2 years to be published. I am currently waiting for a Case Western article that was supposed to be out months ago. Maybe I should have been worried when they said April 1st (which was already late).I keep hoping that it will be out any day now...