New issue of Queen’s Law Journal explores contemporary issues in law and economics

Photo by Aimee Burtch

Brian Kolenda, Law '10, 2009-10 editor-in-chief of QLJ; Professor Metcalf, author of the introduction to the spring 2009 issue of QLJ; and Professor Emeritus Bernie Adell, faculty advisor to QLJ

In its fall 2009 issue, the Queen’s Law Journal makes a major contribution to the very important debate between the currently dominant “law and economics” approach to legal regulation and the increasingly popular “behavioural law and economics” approach.

The law’s efforts to regulate behaviour are based in assumptions about human rationality – the factors that influence the way people act, including the way they decide how to respond to legal regulation.

Rational choice theory, based in classical economic thought, assumes that individuals consistently act on the basis of a rational assessment of what is in their own interest. This theory underlies the “law and economics” approach to legal regulation.

However, competing models of rationality, which have led to the growth of “behavioural law and economics,” instead see human behaviour as the product of a wide range of psychological and situational factors.

The Queen’s Law Journal has just added an important dimension to the debate by publishing a collection of papers by leading scholars from around the world on the theme of “Emerging Paradigms of Rationality.” The papers were given at a conference held in the fall of 2008 at the University of Minnesota Law School and organized by Professor Claire Hill, Director of the Institute for Law and Rationality at that university. The titles of some of the papers capture the spirit of the debate very well: “Beyond Liability: Correcting Optimism Bias Through Tort Law;” “Feel-Good Formalism;” and “Leading You Down the Choice Path: Rational Persuasion as Collective Rationality.”

Professor Cherie Metcalf, who wrote the introductory paper, attended the conference along with two of the 2008-09 senior editors of the Journal. In her introduction, she reviews each of the contributions to the fall 2009 issue and puts them clearly into the broader context of the ongoing debate on the relationship between law and rational choice.

“This issue is a really great chance to expose the Canadian legal community to law and economics as it evolves,” Metcalf says.

The fall 2009 issue also features a tribute by Deidré Rowe Brown to Queen’s University’s first major alumni benefactor: “Robert Sutherland: Celebrating the Legacy.” This article recognizes the achievements of Ontario’s first black university graduate and lawyer who bequeathed his entire estate to Queen’s in 1878, and was most recently honoured in October 2009 with the renaming of the Policy Studies Building as Robert Sutherland Hall.

A Journal at the top of its field

The Fall 2009 issue of the Queen's Law Journal (full-size image)

In recent years, the level of scholarly writing published in the Queen’s Law Journal has steadily risen, both in theme issues such as the fall 2009 issue and eclectic issues (such as the forthcoming Spring 2010 issue) which include a wide variety of articles by authors in different areas of law and in related disciplines. Correspondingly, the quality of submissions has seen marked improvement.

“The acceptance rate for submissions used to be nearly 50 per cent, but it is now only about 20 per cent,” says Professor Emeritus Bernie Adell, faculty advisor to the Journalfor more than 15 years.

“Law is one of the very few scholarly disciplines in North America in which a high proportion of the best scholarly writing appears in journals edited and managed by students,” he adds.

At the first national conference of student law journal editors held at Queen’s in 2005, keynote speaker Professor Jean Leclair of the University of Montreal spoke very highly of the work that the student editors of the Journal had done on articles he had submitted. In the fall of 2010, the Queen’s Law Journal will host a second national conference of Canadian student law journal editors, to facilitate the exchange of ideas on the challenges that student-run law reviews face in this country.  

Recently, the Washington and Lee School of Law in the United States published a ranking of the frequency with which each Canadian law journal was cited in U.S. law reviews in the past several years (American Citations to Canadian Law Journals 2001-2008). The Queen’s Law Journal was the highest-ranked student-edited law journal, and the second highest-ranked of all Canadian law journals, including those edited by faculty members.

The Queen’s Law Journal was founded in 1968 as an intramural publication featuring academic papers written by students. Over the next few years, it evolved into a fully refereed scholarly journal, run by a student editorial board with the assistance of a faculty advisor, publishing high-quality scholarly work and seeking to promote critical reflection on legal issues of broad concern in Canada and internationally.

The Journal has an editorial board of 15 to17 upper-year law students, and also relies heavily on the work of about 40 first-year and upper-year volunteer editorial assistants. Students going into second and third year are selected for the next year’s editorial board every March, and receive academic credit for their work on the Journal. Editorial assistants are selected every September.

“We were very happy when the Washington and Lee rankings came out,” says Brian Kolenda, Law ‘10, the current Editor-in-Chief of the Queen’s Law Journal. “The ranking reflects the efforts of the faculty and students, and we want to continue to raise our profile and publish better and better scholarship.”

For more information on the Queen’s Law Journal, including information on submissions and subscriptions, see http://law.queensu.ca/students/queensLawJournal.html