Katharine P. Moir

The University of Chicago Law Review first appeared in 1933, thirty-one years after the Law School offered its first classes. Joseph Beale, the first Dean of the Law School, and William Rainey Harper, the first President of the University, had wanted to establish a law review sooner. The reasons for the delay, according to a letter of Professor James Parker Hall, included the small size of the faculty, the work accompanying the organization and early operations of the school, and, most importantly, the cost of publication. By the time 1 U Chi L Rev appeared in 1933, law reviews had already earned an influential place in American jurisprudence. The Supreme Court first cited a law review article in 1917. See Adams v Tanner, 224 US 590, 606, 613 (1917) (Brandeis dissenting), citing The American Labor Legislation Review. Student members of Volume One included Edward Levi, Stanley Kaplan, and Abraham Ribicoff. Authors of articles appearing in Volume One included William O. Douglas, Charles E. Clark, Charles O. Robory, Robert Hutchins, Joseph Beale, and E.W. Hinton. Over the next eight years, the Law Review grew in stature. Contributing authors included Bigelow, Pound, Wigmore, Kalven, and Williston. Student members included Bernard Meltzer, Harry Kalven, Albert Ehrenzweig, and Wally Blum, about whom it is said that, as Editor-in-Chief, he edited the Law Review at Jimmy's, beer in hand. Volume Ten marked the entry of the United States into World War II. A staff of just two students produced the first issue; with the fourth issue, the faculty assumed editorship. Volumes Ten through Thirteen, without much student work, averaged under 500 pages. After the war, the Law Review returned to the students. Since then the Law Review has continued to serve as a forum for the expression of ideas of leading professors, judges, and practitioners, as well as students, and as a training ground for University of Chicago Law School students. Prominent former members include Judge Abner Mikva and Provost Geoffrey Stone (both Editors-in-Chief); Judges Frank Easterbrook, Douglas Ginsburg, Danny Boggs, David Tatel, Michael McConnell, and Robert Bork; Senator Amy Klobuchar; and Professors Marvin Chirelstein, Daniel Fischel, Lawrence Friedman, Mary Ann Glendon, Randal Picker, Dale Carpenter, Ward Farnsworth, and M. Todd Henderson. The list of authors published includes Supreme Court Justices Brennan, Clark, Douglas, Frankfurter, Scalia, and Stevens; Judges Bazelon, Breitel, Frank, Friendly, Posner, Wald, Weinstein, Williams, Winter, and Wright; Justice Roger Traynor of the California Supreme Court; and Professors Ackerman, Calabresi, Dworkin, Hart, Llewellyn, Rawls, Wigmore, Williston, and Brainerd Currie, to mention only a few names from the list of illustrious scholars. The Law Review has even published an Article by J. Edgar Hoover.