Legal Commentary

In tomorrow's New York Times, it is noted that SSRN allows academics to measure their relative popularity.  Just as newspapers track the day's most downloaded stories and Amazon.com lists book sale rankings, we're told, now academics have found a way to keep score.

It's actually a pretty decent synopsis of the SSRN phenomenon, noting that it takes away the power of gatekeepers, makes scholarship available to the masses and lets them decide what's worthy, etc.  It points out that sexy still sells, noting that an essay with an unspeakable title is the 11th most downloaded article on the site (sorta NSFW, unless you're an academic).

It's still not clear to me what SSRN means for the future of legal academics.  I used to think that it would  be the death of most law journals -- that people would essentially self-publish their work on SSRN and advertise it on their blogs instead of seeking law journal placement.  That doesn't necessarily seem to be happening though.  People will be sure to correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that the explosion of SSRN has caused most people to stop publishing in journals, at least not yet.  You post on SSRN before (often long, long before) your article sees print, but aren't most people still seeking placements for their articles in old-fashioned journals?   If so, why?  I understand that untenured faculty still need the stamp of approval that comes with law journal acceptance.  For those of us with tenure, though, what makes us continue to seek such acceptance?