Digital repository for Pace Law School law reviews

Pace Law Review, Pace Environmental Law Review and Pace International Law Review are now available via the Pace University digital repository hosted by Bepress. The full-text of all issues, beginning with volume 1, issue 1, is available as searchable PDF files.

The law reviews were formerly available in the series format in the Pace Digital Commons, but have been migrated to the more appropriate journal format. Each issue includes the editorial board. Currently there are 1,634 articles in 173 issues comprising 79 volumes.

This project was managed by Cynthia Pittson, Head of Reference Services at Pace Law Library and Adjunct Professor of Law.

Pace Law Review was established in 1980, and celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Over the years it has published transcripts of speeches and lectures by current and former Supreme Court Justices, including Warren E. Burger, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Harry A. Blackmun.

Pace Environmental Law Review was established in 1983. The most recent issue is devoted to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.

Pace International Law Review was established in 1989. It devoted an early issue to discussion of the establishment of an international criminal court, and publishes frequent articles on the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).

Articles from all three law reviews were downloaded over 50,000 times between May 2009 and April 2010 in the old series format.

One thing that bothers me about Google Scholar’s Legal Opinions and Journals

When using Google Scholar’s advanced search option for legal opinion and journals, the title of the law review article retrieved is more often than not linked to the version of the article in HeinOnline or another subscription database like JSTOR. Since our Library subscribes to Hein, access on campus is not an issue. However, if you try to access the article from home, you see the first page of the article, with an invitation to purchase it from Hein.

You’ll never know that an article is available for free unless you click the link at bottom of the citation that says "All # versions." Sometimes a link will appear in the column on the right—this represents a free version, but doesn’t consistently appear. Why can’t the free version of the article — from a law review website, an institutional repository, or SSRN — appear first, or appear in a column on the right that is clearly marked?

See the picture above for an illustration of where to click for the free version when you access a law review article via Google Scholar. Keep in mind that the article you want might not be available for free, but as more and more law schools establish repositories of faculty scholarship the likelihood that it is increases every day.