So in my (probably) final set of musings for this evening, I was wondering where university-based law reviews originally came from. Of course today most law schools have more than one law review each – variety of specialty journals etc as we all know. But where did the first law reviews come from? Whose idea was it that law schools should produce law reviews, and what was their original purpose? Did it start in England – as so many academic traditions did? Or did it start in different places independently? Was the original purpose to teach students to edit/write? To give law faculty a place to publish? To showcase faculty work? How different were law review origins from current practices? And does anyone know which was the first law review, and which was the first U.S. law review (if indeed the idea didn't originate in the U.S.)?
The Genesis of the Law Review
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Law Journal by John Morgan and Thomas Walter Williams in London in 1803?
According to the recently published article Reading, Writing, and Citing: In Praise of Law Reviews (52 New York Law School Law Review 349), the first U.S. law review affiliated with a law school was the Albany Law School Journal, first published in 1875.
I had to look this stuff up for a lecture a while back, but this was my quick and dirty read of the history. Caveat emptor:
There are two different histories. The first one was Penn's. As I recall, there were several legal periodicals that started popping up mid-1800s or so. Two emerged that were more scholarly-ish. I think those were the American Law Review and American Law Register. My recollection is that the Penn dean was on the board, and that he eventually moved one of them to UPenn, where student labor was cheap. But it wasn't exactly a "student-run" law review.
The first one of those was at Harvard. Several students wanted to share their writings (people like Williston, etc.), and they eventually approached the faculty about starting a journal that would include student writings, updates, and faculty writings. Sort of like a really nerdy Dead Poets Society. And once Harvard had it, Yale and Columbia needed one too. And off it goes…
Joe has it right. A significant number of law journals existed in the mid-nineteenth century, all managed by legal professionals. I don't know the total, but several dozen can be found on Heinonline: American Jurist and Law Mag., U.S. Law Mag., Southern Law Review, Western Jurist, Virginia Law Register, Albany Law Journal (not student run), American Law Register, and a bunch more. They carried a mix of reports on cases, speeches to the bar by prominent jurists, legal commentary, and scholarly pieces on law. The American Law Review was the most academic of these (Holmes was an early contributor.). Students at Harvard began a student run journal for the reasons Joe indicates, and the rest is history.