1 For discussion of some of these issues, see Stephanie L Plotkin, ‘Legal Scholarship, Electronic Publishing, and Open Access: Transformation or Steadfast Stagnation?’ (2009) 101 Law Library Journal 31.Google Scholar

2 See, for example on the issue of indexing, Edward T Hart, ‘Indexing Open Access Law Journals…or Maybe Not’ (2010) 38 International Journal of Legal Information 19.Google Scholar

3 See, for example, Richard A Danner, ‘Open Access to Legal Scholarship: Dropping the Barriers to Discourse and Dialogue’ (2012) 7 Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology 65 at 68 referring to a number of authors who have made this argument.Google Scholar

4 Plotkin, , above n 1 at 40.Google Scholar

5 The information in this paragraph and the following four paragraphs is drawn from the SSRN website (www.ssrn.com) viewed 1 June 2012.Google Scholar

6 Id. at http://www.ssrn.com/lsn/index.html.Google Scholar

7 Carol A Parker, ‘Institutional Repositories and the Principle of Open Access: Changing the Way we Think About Legal Scholarship’ (2007) 37 New Mexico Law Review 1 at 32.Google Scholar

8 Ibid at 14.Google Scholar

9 See http://www.ssrn.com/update/general/ssrn_faq.html under the heading ‘What is a SSRN abstract journal?’ (viewed 1 June 2012).Google Scholar

10 Each of the subject matter eJournals has an editor who will review the request of the author to have the abstract of the paper included in the eJournal and who will make a decision regarding whether it is appropriate to include the abstract: See http://www.ssrn.com/update/general/ssrn_faq.html under the heading ‘Step-by-step submission instructions to submit or revise submissions to SSRN's library’ (viewed 1 June 2012).Google Scholar

11 Black, Bernard S and Caron, Paul L, ‘Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance’ (2006) 81 Indiana Law Journal 83 at 113.Google Scholar

12 SSRN uses two measurements – total number of papers downloaded and total number of papers downloaded in the past 12 months. I have used the former measure and using this measure, the leading law schools outside of the United States in terms of downloads of papers as of 6 June 2012 were, in order, Tilburg Law School (No 7), the University of Oxford Law School (No 22), the University of Toronto Law School (No 25), Melbourne Law School (No 26), Sydney Law School (No 29) and the University of Cambridge Law School (No 42).Google Scholar

13 James M Donovan and Carol W Watson, ‘Citation Advantages of Open Access Legal Scholarship’ (2011) 103 Law Library Journal 553.Google Scholar

14 See http://www.ssrn.com. (viewed 1 June 2012).Google Scholar

15 Rankings of US law schools, while controversial, have been undertaken for many years. One well known ranking of US law school is undertaken by US News. Of the top 10 US law schools ranked by US News for 2012 (for the list see http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/law-rankings, viewed 3 July 2012), all 10 have their own SSRN eJournal. One ranking of US and non-US universities and law schools is provided by QS. Of the top 10 law schools ranked by QS for 2012 (for the list see http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2012/subject-rankings/social-science/law, viewed 3 July 2012), nine have their own SSRN eJournal.Google Scholar

16 See http://www.ssrn.com/update/general/ssrn_faq.html under the heading ‘Is my paper eligible for inclusion and public display in SSRN's eLibrary?’ (viewed 1 June 2012).Google Scholar

17 See http://www.ssrn.com/update/general/ssrn_faq.html under the heading ‘How do I search for a paper in the SSRN eLibrary?’ (viewed 1 June 2012).Google Scholar

18 AustLII, or the Australasian Legal Information Institute, describes itself on its website as “Australia's most popular online free-access resource for Australian legal information, serving the needs of a multitude of users with over 900,000 hits daily… AustLII provides free internet access to Australasian legal materials. AustLII's broad public policy agenda is to improve access to justice through better access to information. To that end, we have become one of the largest sources of legal materials on the net, with over four million searchable documents. AustLII publishes public legal information - that is, primary legal materials (legislation, treaties and decisions of courts and tribunals); and secondary legal materials created by public bodies for purposes of public access (law reform and royal commission reports for example) and a substantial collection of law journals”. See http://www.austlii.edu.au/austlii/ (viewed 1 June 2012).Google Scholar

19 Legal Services Commissioner v Mullins [2006] QLPT 12, 23 November 2006, Queensland Legal Practice Tribunal, and Luxe Day Spa (Ms Jaquiline Gill) -v- Ms Sarah De Longis [2008] WAIRComm 1739, 18 December 2008, Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The search terms used were “SSRN” and “Social Science Research Network”.Google Scholar

20 These searches used the full title of the journal and therefore are likely to underestimate the number of citations of the journals by courts as the abbreviated title of the journal will often be used.Google Scholar

21 ‘The price of information', THE ECONOMIST, 4 February 2012 at 66.Google Scholar

22 Committee on Electronic Scientific, Technical, and Medical Journal Publishing and Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy and Global Affairs Division, The National Academies, Electronic Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishing and its Implications, The National Academies Press, Washington DC, 2004 at 24.Google Scholar

23 Donovan and Watson, above n 12 at 555.Google Scholar

24 The cost of an annual subscription to the Federal Law Review is $150, an annual subscription to the Sydney Law Review is $212, an annual subscription to the Melbourne University Law Review is $200, and an annual subscription to the University of New South Wales Law Journal is $121. These subscription prices were obtained by a review of the websites of the journals conducted on 25 June 2012.Google Scholar

25 For example, an annual subscription to the Public Law Review is $820, an annual subscription to the Australian Business Law Review is $804 and an annual subscription to the Company & Securities Law Journal is $920. These prices are for hard copy subscriptions only with electronic subscriptions being much more expensive. These subscription prices were obtained by a review of the websites of the journals conducted on 25 June 2012.Google Scholar

26 See Parker, above n 6 at 13 and Danner, above n 3 at 73.Google Scholar

27 I conducted this survey on 30 January 2012.Google Scholar

28 Note the boycott by several thousand academics of the journals of a major publisher referred to in the text accompanying n 20 above.Google Scholar