Fagan, Frank, The Coming Law Review Shortage (November 05, 2025). Illinois Law Review Online (forthcoming 2025), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5732967 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5732967

Today, law reviews sit near equilibrium: roughly 5,000 annual submissions for about 5,600 slots. Tomorrow, large language models are likely to drive output toward 8,000. The result is a systemic shortage of publication placements. Peer review will not emerge; instead, journals will lean more heavily on prestige heuristics, expand symposia, experiment with limited faculty input, and adopt technological triage. The core student-edited model will endure, but scarcity could revalue publication across the hierarchy, thereby raising the floor of prestige, elevating specialties, and turning abundance into a more competitive, plural, and consequential marketplace for legal scholarship. Hiring committees, promotion reviews, and tenure evaluations may adapt by revaluing placements outside the traditional elite.