I rarely post based on an online comment, but this one more than deserves it.

Rochelle Klempner, Counsel to NY Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Fern Fisher , just responded to my most recent post on the new public access system to many law reviews as follows:

Thanks Richard! The source is wonderful, I tested it out this morning instead of using westlaw and easily found some great articles. We are adding the link to all our NY court website menus as an option for legal research and we are adding it to our public access terminals in our Help Centers.

What a great idea.  Not only because it means that more practitioners will learn about the site, but more importantly because it will help this resource become available to litigants.  That in its turn might help writers and editors think about broader audiences.  And, that, in its turn, might reverse the trend, highlighted in a snotty article in today’s Times, about the supposed irrelevance of law reviews.

While I think the article does make some fair points about the lack of attention paid to law reviews, it misses one point, important to the access community.  Because there is still so little pubic attention to access issues, much of the discussion and debate about access innovation really does go on in law reviews, particularly in law review symposia, such as the forthcoming Fordham Urban Law Journal one, and the recent Drake Law Review one.