ATTN LR AUTHORS: would you prefer a rejection, or to never hear back from a law review?

Definitely a rejection, and as promptly as possible.

Absolutely a rejection.

rejection.

Rejection.

There is nothing worse than submitting an article to a publication, whether it is a law journal or any other periodical, and hearing nothing. Rejections aren't pleasant, but non-replies are simply lacking in civility.

Paul Savoy

Thanks for your responses! Probably feels like a silly question, but it's one that I haven't had the chance to directly ask authors.

I've been trying to encourage the editors I work with to send rejections when they're not going to publish a submission. I am glad that now I have some real author feedback about receiving a rejection instead of never hearing anything!

Without question, a rejection.

Always Rejection notice

Rejection. It eliminates ambiguity (i.e., no writing and asking whether the piece is still in consideration).

The harder question is would you prefer just a rejection or a rejection after being told that you got a board read but they couldn't achieve the "greater consensus."  Some things are best left unsaid!

As unpleasant as it is, hearing a rejection is preferable.  It's bad enough that the process makes me feel like a cog in an immense wheel. A rejection injects a little humanity into the system.  That said, getting an email with "Rejection of your Article" as the subject line is a little crushing.  

Definitely a rejection, for two reasons -- 

First, when law reviews send you a confirmation e-mail, they promise to get back to you as soon as they have a decision. Some of them don't even bother sending you a rejection e-mail.

Second, when you receive a rejection, you can rest assured that the law review received your paper, had some sort of decision making process (even if they did not bother reading your paper at all), and ultimately decided not to publish you, which is OK, but it is better knowing that it reached them and they rejected it. 

And please, no "we enjoyed your paper, but we will not publish it". Just send a brief rejection, no ingenuity required, I will handle it.

A rejection.  

Why would anyone prefer to just never hear anything?  

Confirming what others have said:  rejection.

Hi all-

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts! After reading your comments my colleagues and I have been even more vocal than usual when talking to editors about making decisions. I've also started creating some new resources for editors who need more convincing about making rejection decisions (here's one example - there are more on the way).

If you have any other ideas you'd like conveyed to law review editors, I posted a question about it here. We're trying to make more educational resources to share with [new] law review editors. Please let me know what we should absolutely be communicating when we work with new editors!

Thanks,
Elli

A short note indicating rejection is fine.  At least that way the author has some indication that the article was in fact received and considered.