Smith on Do Not Read @StMarys_Law @msmith750

Michael L. Smith, St. Mary’s University School of Law, is publishing Do Not Read in volume 70 of the South Dakota Law Review (2025). Here is the abstract.

Law professors enjoy marking up drafts of papers with “Do Not Cite or Circulate” notifications-hoping that doing so will manage reader expectations, preserve their reputations, and prevent misuse of works-in-progress. But mere warnings against citing and circulating fail to accomplish these goals. I propose a better way: legal scholars can affix “Do Not Read” labels to their work. “Do Not Read” labels align with numerous structural incentives and norms that shape legal scholarship and academia-norms that are better embraced than reformed. “Do Not Read” labels promise preservation of reputations, efficient hiring procedures and academic workshops, insights into the practice of law, the fulfillment of legal scholarship’s true purposes, and, perhaps, the salvation of humanity as we know it.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.