Editors' Note

• Date: 01 March 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12323
• Published date: 01 March 2018

Editors’ Note

It can be challenging to line up the right peer reviewers for a

manuscript. Reviewers benefit by getting an early sense of the

work that is out, but that is a diffuse benefit. The most reliable

reviewers are often those with multiple requests and reviewing

while doing all the other work our jobs require is often a chal-

lenge. Peer review journals like Law and Society Review depend on

the generosity of a large and varied community of potential

reviewers. Editorial frustration can build around the occasional

manuscript that requires two-dozen requests to get three reviews.

But, the review process always improves a manuscript, sometimes

considerably. The reviewers and editors put time and thought

into the comments authors receive; it is a form of community ser-

vice we do for, and that we rely on from, our colleagues.

Increasingly, the institution of peer reviewing has come

under examination. As gatekeeper to elite academic journals,

peer review marks out articles that end up as “heftier” entries in

a resume. Peer review can also function to constrain the canon:

novel arguments and emergent scholarship can be tougher to get

through the peer review process. The double-blind process has

protections against a few types of bias, but not all. Our challenge

as editors is to extend both the reach and the variety of law and

society scholarship while maintaining disciplinary rigor and

coherence.

ATimes Higher Education article (Matthews, 2016) argues that

the peer review system “is coming apart at the seams.” According

to the article, increasing numbers of papers submitted and of

journal types add new strains to the system. Should peer review

practices change? Should existing journals, say, move to paying

referees for their work? If this ends of up happening, will we see

the evolution of different communities of publishing—some jour-

nals that pay for review and others that continue to rely on vol-

unteer academic labor? These questions are not surprising. With

open access and online paper repositories, academic publishing is

changing and the demands of peer review are correspondingly

shifting.

Law & Society Review, Volume 52, Number 1 (2018)

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