A law review is a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues, normally published by an organization of students at a
law school or through a bar association.[1] The term is also used to describe the extracurricular activity at law schools of publishing the journal. Because of the competitive
process by which law reviews select their staff and the intense research and writing experience gained by being a part of the
journal, membership is considered a prestigious credential.
Law reviews should not be confused with non-scholarly publications such as the New
York Law Journal or The American Lawyer, which are independent,
professional newspapers and news-magazines that cover the daily practice of law (see legal
periodical).
Law reviews as academic journals
The primary function of a law review is to provide a vehicle for academic publishing in the field of law. The vast majority of
law review articles are written by law professors, although it is not uncommon to find articles written by judges and legal
practitioners as well. Many law reviews also publish articles written by law students, normally called "notes" and
"comments."[2] Law review articles serve an important
purpose in that they express the ideas of legal experts with regard to the direction the law should take in certain areas. Such
writings have proven influential in the development of the law, and have frequently been cited as persuasive authority by the
United States Supreme Court and other courts throughout the United
States. However, this influence has been significantly diminishing over recent decades. [3]
Almost every American law school publishes at least one law review, but most law schools have several. Generally, one law
review at each school, sometimes referred to as the law school's "main" or "flagship journal",
publishes articles dealing with all areas of law. This journal is normally named after the law school (e.g., the
Stanford Law Review, or the Wisconsin Law Review). Other journals publish only articles that focus on a specific area of
law, such as international law, environmental
law, or human rights (e.g., the Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, the Cornell International Law Journal or the North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology). These are often referred
to as "specialty law journals" or "satellite journals." There are also a small number of journals focusing on statutory,
regulatory, and public policy issues (e.g., the Journal of
Legislation or the NYU Journal of Legislation & Public Policy).
The University of Pennsylvania Law Review is the oldest
law review, having published continuously since 1852. Also among the oldest and most storied law
review publications are the Harvard Law Review, begun in 1887, the Yale Law Journal, begun in 1891, the Columbia Law Review, successor to the Columbia Jurist,
which had begun in 1885, the Michigan Law
Review, begun in 1902, and Northwestern Law Review, begun in 1906. As law professor
Erwin N. Griswold wrote of the Harvard Law Review: "Some people are concerned that a
major legal periodical in the United States is edited and managed by students. It is an unusual situation, but it started that
way, and it developed mightily from its own strength."[4]
During the 1990s, the American Bar Association followed suit and began
coordinating its own practitioner journals with law schools, courting student editorial bodies for publications including
Administrative Law Review, The International Lawyer, Public Contract
Law Journal, and The Urban Lawyer.[5] Despite Griswold's confidence in student editors, criticism of this practice
continues. In 2004, Judge Richard Posner wrote a scathing attack entitled Against the Law Reviews in the magazine Legal Affairs.
In Canada, the leading law reviews are the University of Toronto Law Journal, the
McGill Law Journal/Revue de droit de
McGill, and the Osgoode Hall Law
Journal. These publications are among the most-cited law reviews by the Supreme Court of Canada, which also cites frequently
from leading American law review articles. Membership requires demanding time commitments, and many editors move on to top
clerkships or eventually join the legal professoriate in Canada.
In Australia, the leading student-edited peer-reviewed academic law reviews are the Melbourne University Law Review and Sydney
Law Review, although the Melbourne University Law Review regularly outperforms Sydney Law Review on impact, citation in journal
and cases and combined rankings. [1]
These publications are among the most-cited law reviews by the High Court of Australia and among the most cited non-US reviews by
US journals. [2] The top
international law journal in Australia is the Melbourne Journal of International Law, also a student-edited peer-reviewed
academic law review. [3] The Melbourne Journal of
International Law is also considered to be more influential and prestigious than most generalist law reviews in Australia.
[4]
Online legal research providers such as Westlaw and LexisNexis give users access to the complete text of most law reviews published beginning from the late
1980s. Another such service, Heinonline, provides actual scans of the pages of law reviews
going back to the 1850s. On 17 March1995, the Web Journal of Current Legal Issues,
became the first law review available exclusively on the Internet.
Law review as an activity
Membership on the law review staff is highly sought after by law students, as it often has a significant impact on their
subsequent careers as attorneys. Many federal judges and partners at the
most prestigious law firms were members or editors of their school's law review. There are a
number of reasons why law review membership is desired--many see the intense writing, research and editing experience as
invaluable to the student's development as an attorney; others see the selection process as helping differentiate the best and
the brightest from an already strong group of law students. At schools with more than one law review, membership on the main or
flagship journal is normally considered more prestigious than membership on a specialty law journal. In any case, membership on
any such journal is a valuable credential when searching out employment after law school.
The paths to membership vary from law school to law school, and also from journal to journal, but generally contain a few of
the same basic elements. Most law reviews select members after their first year of studies either through a writing competition
(often referred to as "writing on" to the law review), their first-year grades (referred to as "grading on" to the law review) or
some combination thereof. A number of schools will also grant membership to students who independently submit a publishable
article. The write-on competition usually requires applicants to compose a written analysis of a specific legal topic, often a
recent Supreme Court decision. The written submissions are often of a set length, and applicants are sometimes provided with some
or all of the background research. Submissions normally are graded blindly, with submissions identified only by a number which
the graders will not be able to connect to a particular applicant. A student who has been selected for law review membership is
said to have "made the law review."
Secondary journals vary widely in their membership process. For example, at Yale Law
School, the only one of its nine journals that has a competitive membership process is the flagship Yale Law
Journal—all others are open to any Yale Law student who wishes to join. By contrast, other secondary journals may have their
own separate membership competition, or may hold a joint competition with the main law review (with the primary journal obviously
getting first choice).
A law review's membership is normally divided into staff members and editors. On most law reviews, all 2Ls (second-year
students) are staff members while some or all 3Ls (third-year students) serve as editors. 3Ls also typically fill the senior
editorial staff positions, including senior articles editor, senior note & comment editor, senior managing editor, and, the
most prestigious of all, editor-in-chief of the law review. Upon graduation, the editor-in-chief of the law review can expect to
be highly recruited by the most prestigious law firms. As members, students are normally expected to write a note or comment of
publishable quality (although it need not actually be published), and to edit and cite-check the articles that are being published by the law review, ensuring that references support what
the author claims they support and that footnotes are in proper Bluebook or
ALWD format, depending on the publication's preference. The editorial staff is
normally responsible for reviewing and selecting articles for publication, managing the editing process, and assisting members in
writing their notes and comments. Depending on the law school, students may receive academic credit for their work on the law
review, although some journals are entirely extracurricular.
Notes
- ^ The New York International Law Review, for example, is published by the New York State
Bar Association instead of a law school.
- ^ The traditional distinction between "notes" and "comments" is that a
comment (sometimes called a "case comment") is an analysis of the holding in a specific court case, while a note is focused on
either legislation or on a more general legal theory or principle.
- ^ Adam Liptak When Rendering Decisions, Judges Are
Finding Law Reviews Irrelevant. New York Times. 19
March 2007.
- ^ Erwin N. Griswold, The Harvard Law Review - Glimpses of Its
History as Seen by an Aficionado (1987).
- ^ But the Administrative Law
Review and The International Lawyer continue to maintain some
of the highest circulation rates in the legal community despite the transition to student editors.
External links
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