I just completed writing a long, scholarly type article on e-discovery and the mathematical algorithm known as “hash”. Hash is a fascinating (well, to me anyway) encryption process that is the key to all electronic document identification and authentication. I will write more on hash at another time (it is my current favorite e-discovery topic). But for now I wanted to share what I learned when trying to decide which scholarly law/technology journals to submit my article to.
Of course I would like to have the article published by the best law journal possible, the most influential and widely read. So I started by asking one of our librarians if they knew which technology law journals were considered to be the best. Akerman has long been known for having one of the best private law firm libraries in the country, so I was surprised they did not know. Aside from a general correlation with the ranking of law schools, they were unaware of any ranking or rating service of law journals.
So I started on the search myself, beginning with the journal from my Alma Mater, the University of Florida’s Journal of Technology Law & Policy. There I found a very complete list of Law and Technology type journals from around the world, but no ranking. (It is, by the way, an excellent journal, and I eventually picked it to publish my article: HASH: the New Bates Stamp, 12 Journal of Technology Law & Policy 1 (June 2007). ) I then looked at a few on the list I had already heard of, and quickly landed at the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology. Unlike the other journals I had seen, the Harvard journal, which calls itself “JOLT”, stated that it was ranked #1 among Science & Technology law reviews by ExpressO, and put a link to the ExpressO website.
Here my search ended successfully with a ranking service of all specialty law journals in various areas of the law, including “Science & Technology”. Moreover, I found that ExpressO is a service of the Berkeley Electronic Press and appears to be legitimate, although I remain unsure of exactly how these rankings are made. So, to get to the bottom line, here is their RANKING OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNALS:
1. Harvard Journal of Law & Technology
2. Berkeley Technology Law Journal
3. Virginia Journal of Law & Technology
4. Boston University Journal of Science & Technology Law
5. Columbia Science and Technology Law Review
6. Duke Law & Technology Review
7. North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology
8. I/S: Journal of Law & Policy for the Information Society
9. Journal of Law, Technology & Policy
10. University of Illinois Journal of Law, Technology & Policy
