Abstract
A short history of law reviews based in law schools in the United States provides the context for an analysis of the faculty's ethical failures properly to supervise our current student-edited law review system. First we need some clear definitions. "Student-edited" means that students both select and edit the articles for publication. "Faculty-edited" or "peer-edited" mean that experienced and distinguished professionals in the discipline both select and edit the articles for publication. "Refereed" means the editors (students or faculty/peers) send articles out to experts to get outside opinions on the quality of the work. In 1886, a group of eight third-year Harvard law students formed a law club referred to as the Langdell Society (named after Christopher Columbus Langdell, the former Dean of Harvard Law School credited with introducing modern legal education-i.e., the "case method").9 The Society was founded for the purpose of providing serious discussion on topics of law-purely for internal purposes.10 A desire to obtain a wider readership, however, resulted in the students' ensuing quest to create the Harvard Law Review.11 John Wigmore credits the creation of the Harvard Law Review with being "chiefly due to the great Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of 1886 [for the University]", which "put pride into [the students'] hearts, and the conviction that the Harvard Law School had a message for the professional world" that they believed could be relayed through their faculty's scholarship. Wigmore went on to describe how the Harvard students' pride in their faculty inspired the creation of this platform to showcase the professors' expertise: "We knew that our faculty comprised scholars of the highest standards and accomplishments in their fields...We knew that their pioneer work in legal education was not yet but ought to be appreciated by the profession. We yearned to see the fruits of their scholarship in print."12 By 1930, forty-three law schools featured a law journal-with the student-edited review becoming the dominant model.20 Today, more than 600 student-edited journals exist among US law schools.21 The Washington and Lee Law Library reports that in the United States, there are also 169 "peer-edited" law journals and 151 "refereed" law journals (either peer-edited or student-edited). 22 Student-edited law reviews continue to dominate the field in terms of ranking with no faculty/peer-reviewed journal higher than 37th in terms of impact and a total of five faculty/peer-reviewed journals ranked in the top 100.23 Appointing student editors as "the 'gatekeepers' of legal scholarship is a distinctive feature of the legal academy [in the United States]."24 -22. Id. "Student-edited" means a student run journal that does not send articles out for peer review; "peer-edited" means ajournai that is edited by professionals in the field; "refereed" means ajournai that routinely sends article submissions on for peer review by members of a diverse professional group. For both "peer-edited" and "refereed" journals, a fully credentialed professional makes the decision whether an article merits publication. It is also useful to note that "student-edited" or "peer-edited" journals may also be "refereed," in which case the journal is listed as "refereed."