Law journal meaning: What are law journals?
Law journals are legal publications that provide a comprehensive discussion of current legal issues in their articles. Journal articles are essentially long essays on a particular legal topic authored by law lecturers, professors or researchers with extensive knowledge of it. Law journals can be focused on a specific type of law, such as the Medical Law Review or they can include articles about different areas of law, such as the Modern Law Review.
In the past law journals were printed on paper and distributed to law schools, research centres and law firms. But these days most of them are published online. Currently, most journals have their own website on which you can access their articles. This usually involves some sort of fee.
For example, the website of the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies provides access to the articles published in the journal after you pay the subscription fee. But more about this later.
Law review vs law journal
Journals that contain academic articles in law are usually referred to as "law journals" or "law reviews". Although the different names of those publications can be confusing, there is actually not much real difference between them. Both are periodical sources of legal knowledge and both are equally authoritative.
The biggest difference in the authority levels is between professional and student-run law reviews and journals. The former typically accept publications from law professors, barristers, solicitors and legal researchers. For example, the Cambridge Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics is a highly authoritative legal journal that publishes articles related to medical law and ethics.
Student-run law reviews and journals accept publications from LLB, LLM & PhD students and recent graduates. The Oxford University Undergraduate Law Journal is a great example of a legal journal that publishes the works of undergraduate law students.
How are law articles organised in journals?
Most legal journals organise their articles into "volumes" which are then divided into "issues". This helps you identify exactly where to find a specific journal article, particularly if a journal publishes hundreds of articles every year. Volumes and issues will typically be numbered.
For example, you will find an article that will be published in volume 3, issue 2 of the 2018 publication of a particular journal. Sometimes volumes and issues are named after the season (Spring, Summer, Winter etc.) or the month in which they were released. Here is an example of the May issue of the Modern Law Review which was published in 2019.
In general, volumes and issues used to be more of a concern in the past, when accessing journal articles involved going to the library, looking for the physical copy of the publication, identifying the year of the publication as well as the volume and the issue in which the journal was published.
These days, due to databases such as Westlaw and LexisNexis which make searches easier, many journals skip volumes and instead publish articles in issues. That doesn't mean, however, that you can skip including information about the publication year, the issue etc. in the bibliography and footnotes of your essay. These are still a major part of legal academic writing.
How to find law journal articles?
There are two ways of finding journal articles for your law essays. The more traditional one is to go directly to the pages of individual law journals or reviews and run a search for specific keywords relevant to the topic you are researching. If you decide to use this method, you will look for articles in only one journal. This means that you are less likely to find relevant articles.
Nowadays, the most common method of finding journal articles is to use databases that pull together articles from several journals. If you are in the UK, you typically use Westlaw, LexisNexis or Google Scholar for that purpose. This method saves you time, because you simultaneously search for keywords relevant to your research topic in several law journals and reviews. But, if a law journal is not included in the database, you won't find it.
Keep in mind that access to most law journals and reviews is paid. But the good news is that you won't have to go bankrupt over journal subscriptions. Your university will have purchased access to Westlaw and/or LexisNexis for all law students.
Having said that, whether or not you will be given access to individual articles will depend on your university's subscription to those platforms. That's why using the two of them together will guarantee you access to all articles that you will need to read during your LLB.
TIP: If you want to find out exactly, step-by-step, how to find journal articles on Westlaw, LexisNexis and Google Scholar check out my First Class Law Essay Writing Course.
What are the best journals for law students?
Ultimately the best journal articles for law students to include in their essays are those that are the most authoritative AND the most relevant to their essay topic. For example, if your essay is on the law of negligence and you found two articles about that area of law, the better one is the one that more precisely discusses the topic of your assignment.
If both of them are equally relevant to your coursework topic, then the best one is the one with higher authority. There are several things that indicate a journal's high authority. Here is a list of them:
- Publisher's reputation: Journals published by reputable universities and institutions (e.g. Cambridge University, Oxford University) are more authoritative than those published by less reputable universities and those not backed up by any educational institution.
- Database indexing: Articles from authoritative journals are always included in databases such as Westlaw and LexisNexis. That's why it's a good idea to look for journal articles for your law essays directly in those databases.
- Peer review: Journals which are peer-reviewed are more authoritative than those that are not. Peer-review requires each journal article to be reviewed by experts in a particular area of law before publication.
Why use journal articles in your law essays?
The first reason is that you simply don’t have enough knowledge of law yourself at this stage to formulate well thought-through arguments about individual areas of law. And when I say "you" I don't just mean you personally.
This applies to all undergraduate law students. Studying for your LLB degree is an opportunity to learn how to formulate such arguments. And what better way to do it than reading the "essays" of more experienced academic writers, aka journal articles?
Secondly, it will be very difficult to write an effective law assignment if you don't include academic opinion from journal articles in it. Your essays are mini-attempts at getting you settled in the world of academia, and the whole ethos of the academic world is about comparing and contrasting your views with the views of others.
But you can't compare your views against those of others if you haven't first presented their views in your work. That's why first class law essays include both brief explanations of academic opinions from journal articles and the views of the student author about those opinions.
TIP: Getting your essay published in a journal or a law review is a great way to stand out and improve your CV. Check out my older post to find out where to publish legal articles as a law student.