Harvard Law Review

The Harvard Law Review is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the Harvard Law Review's 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of 143 journals in the category "Law".[1] It is published monthly from November through June, with the November issue dedicated to covering the previous year's term of the Supreme Court of the United States. The journal also publishes the online-only Harvard Law Review Forum, a rolling journal of scholarly responses to the main journal's content.

Harvard Law Review

Discipline	Law
Language	English
Publication details
History	1887–present
Publisher	The Harvard Law Review Association (United States)
Frequency	8/year
Impact factor	4.680 (2018)
Standard abbreviations ISO 4 (alt) · Bluebook (alt1 · alt2) NLM (alt) · MathSciNet (alt )
Bluebook	Harv. L. Rev.
ISO 4	Harv. Law Rev.
Indexing CODEN · JSTOR (alt) · LCCN (alt) MIAR · NLM (alt) · Scopus
CODEN	HALRAF
ISSN	0017-811X
LCCN	12032979
OCLC no.	46968396
Links
Journal homepage Online archive

The Harvard Law Review Association, in conjunction with the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal, publishes the Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, a widely followed authority for legal citation formats in the United States.

History

The Harvard Law Review published its first issue on April 15, 1887, making it one of the oldest operating student-edited law reviews in the United States.[2] The establishment of the journal was largely due to the support of Louis Brandeis, then a recent Harvard Law School alumnus and Boston attorney who would later go on to become a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

From the 1880s to the 1970s, editors were selected on the basis of their grades; the president of the Review was the student with the highest academic rank. The first female editor of the journal was Priscilla Holmes (1953-1955, Volumes 67-68);[3] the first woman to serve as the journal's president was Susan Estrich (1977), who later was active in Democratic Party politics and became the youngest woman to receive tenure at Harvard Law School; its first non-white ethnic minority president was Raj Marphatia (1988, Volume 101), who is now a partner at the Boston law firm of Ropes & Gray;[4][5][6] its first African-American president was the 44th President of the United States Barack Obama (1991);[7][8] its first openly gay president was Mitchell Reich (2011);[9] its first Latino president was Andrew M. Crespo, who is now tenured as a professor at Harvard Law School.[10] The first female African-American president, ImeIme Umana, was elected in 2017.[11]

Gannett House, a white building constructed in the Greek Revival style that was popular in New England during the mid-to-late 19th century, has been home to the Harvard Law Review since the 1920s. Before moving into Gannett House, the journal resided in the Law School's Austin Hall.

Since the change of criteria in the 1970s, grades are no longer the primary basis of selection for editors. Membership in the Harvard Law Review is offered to select Harvard law students based on first-year grades and performance in a writing competition held at the end of the first year except for twelve slots that are offered on a discretionary basis.[12][7][13] The writing competition includes two components: an edit of an unpublished article and an analysis of a recent United States Supreme Court or Court of Appeals case.[12] The writing competition submissions are graded blindly to assure anonymity.[13][14] Fourteen editors (two from each 1L section) are selected based on a combination of their first-year grades and their competition scores. Twenty editors are selected based solely on their competition scores. The remaining twelve editors are selected on a discretionary basis. According to the law review's webpage, "Some of these discretionary slots may be used to implement the Review's affirmative action policy."[12] The president of the Harvard Law Review is elected by the other editors.[7][15]

It has been a long tradition, apparently since the first issue, that the works of students published in the Harvard Law Review are called "notes," and they are unsigned as part of a policy reflecting "the fact that many members of the Review besides the author make a contribution to each published piece."[16]

In 2012, Harvard Law Review had 1,722 paid subscriptions.[17]

Alumni

Volume 1 of the Harvard Law Review (1887–1888).

Prominent alumni of the Harvard Law Review include:

President of the United States

• Barack Obama, served as president of volume 104[18]

Supreme Court Justices

• Stephen Breyer, served as articles editor of volume 77[19]^:182
• Felix Frankfurter[20]
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg, served as editor for one year before transferring to Columbia Law School[19]^:187
• Elena Kagan, served as supervising editor of volume 99[21]
• John G. Roberts, Jr., served as managing editor for volume 92[19]^:178
• Antonin Scalia, served as notes editor for volume 73[19]^:147
• Edward Sanford

Other jurists

• David J. Barron, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, served as articles editor[22]
• Michael Boudin, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, served as president of volume 77[19]^{:182 n.141}
• Henry Friendly, late judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, served as president[23]
• Merrick Garland, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, served as articles editor[24]
• Harris Hartz, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, served as case and developments editor[25]
• Ketanji Brown Jackson, judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, supervising editor of volume 109.[26]
• Gregory G. Katsas, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, executive editor of volume 102.
• William Kayatta, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit[27]
• Pierre Leval, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, served as notes editor[28]
• Debra Ann Livingston, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit[28]
• James Kenneth Logan, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
• Kevin C. Newsom, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, articles editor of volume 110.
• Nina Pillard, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit[29]
• James L. Oakes, late judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit[28]
• Learned Hand, late judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, served as an editor but later resigned.
• Richard Posner, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, served as president of volume 75^:184

Cabinet secretaries

• Dean Acheson, Secretary of State[30]
• Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security and former judge on United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit[31]
• William Coleman, Jr., Secretary of Transportation, Brown v. Board of Education attorney, and first African-American Supreme Court clerk[32]
• Mike Pompeo, current US Secretary of State
• Elliot Richardson, Attorney General, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Commerce, served as president (1947)[33]

Other U.S. government officials

• Paul Clement, former U.S. Solicitor General, served as Supreme Court editor[34]
• Archibald Cox, late U.S. Solicitor General[35]
• Christopher Cox, former chairman of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission[36]
• Ted Cruz, U.S. Senator from Texas[37]
• Viet Dinh, former Assistant Attorney General, served as Bluebook editor[38]
• Charles Evans Hughes Jr., former U.S. Solicitor General[39]
• Michael Froman, U.S. Trade Representative[40]
• Julius Genachowski, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission[41]
• Ian Gershengorn, former acting U.S. Solicitor General[42]
• Danielle Gray, former Cabinet Secretary[43]
• Erwin N. Griswold, a dean of the Harvard Law School and Solicitor General under presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon[7]
• Alger Hiss, former U.S. State Department Official and alleged spy[44]
• Ron Klain, former chief of staff to vice presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden[8]
• Michael Leiter, former Director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center,[45] president of volume 113[46]
• Mark S. Martins, Brigadier General in the United States Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, Chief Prosecutor of Military Commissions[47]
• Bernard Nussbaum, former White House Counsel, served as notes editor[48]
• F. Whitten Peters, former Secretary of the Air Force, served as president[49]
• Edith Ramirez, chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission[50]
• Rod Rosenstein, U.S. Deputy Attorney General
• Jamie Raskin, U.S. Representative from Maryland
• Robert A. Taft, U.S. Senator from Ohio[51]
• Barry B. White, former United States Ambassador to Norway[52]

Other government officials

• Preeta D. Bansal, former New York State Solicitor General, served as supervising editor[53]
• Allan Gotlieb, former Canadian Ambassador to the United States[54]
• Eliot Spitzer, former Governor of New York[55]
• Robert Stanfield, former Premier of the Province of Nova Scotia, and former leader of Canada's Official Opposition. He was the Review's first Canadian editor in the late 1930s.[56]

Academics

• Stephen Barnett, legal scholar at University of California, Berkeley School of Law who opposed the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970[57]
• Alexander Bickel, late professor at Yale Law School
• Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University[58]
• Kingman Brewster, former president of Yale University, served as treasurer[59]
• Amy Chua, professor at Yale Law School, served as executive editor[60]
• Stephen J. Friedman, president of Pace University[61]
• John H. Garvey, president of The Catholic University of America[62]
• Annette Gordon-Reed, professor at Harvard Law School and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History[63]
• Robert A. Gorman (born 1937), law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School
• Charles Hamilton Houston, former Dean of Howard University Law School and NAACP Litigation Director[64]
• Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, professor at Yale Law School
• John Honnold (1915-2011), law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School
• Harold Koh, former Dean of Yale Law School[65]
• David Leebron, president of Rice University, served as president[66]
• Lance Liebman, former Dean of Columbia Law School, served as president[67]
• William C. Powers, former president of University of Texas, served as managing editor[68]
• Stephen Schulhofer (born 1942), Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and NYU Law School
• John Sexton, former president of New York University[69]
• James Vorenberg, former Dean of Harvard Law School, served as president[70]
• Michael K. Young, president of Texas A&M University[71]

Other attorneys

• Bennett Boskey, law clerk to Judge Learned Hand and two U.S. Supreme Court justices[72]
• Joe Flom, noted M&A attorney and name partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom[73]
• John B. Quinn, founder and name partner of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan[74]

Writers and journalists

• Phil Graham, former publisher of The Washington Post[75]
• Archibald MacLeish, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet[76]
• Cliff Sloan, former publisher of Slate[77]
• Jeffrey Toobin, print and broadcast journalist[78]

Other alumni

• David Bonderman, co-founder of private equity firm TPG Capital[79]
• Norman Dorsen, former American Civil Liberties Union president[80]
• Jeff Kindler, former CEO of Pfizer[81]
• Alfred Lee Loomis, financier, scientist, and inventor[82]
• Rob Manfred, commissioner of Major League Baseball, served as articles editor[83]
• Adebayo Ogunlesi, chairman and managing partner of Global Infrastructure Partners[84]
• Nadine Strossen, former American Civil Liberties Union president[85]

See also

• Harvard Law Record
• Hart–Fuller debate

References

1. "Journals Ranked by Impact: Law". 2011 Journal Citation Reports. Web of Science (Science ed.). Thomson Reuters. 2012.
2. Friedman, Lawrence M. (2005). A History of American Law (3rd ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 481. ISBN 0684869888.
3. Greenfield, Jill (2011). ""She Rose Above Obstacles With Ease" Priscilla Holmes '55: 1924-2010". Harvard Law Bulletin.
4. Griswold, Erwin N (1987). "The Harvard Law Review — Glimpses of Its History as Seen by an Aficionado". Harvard Law Review: Centennial Album I. Retrieved 2012-05-02.
5. "Women and Law Review: An Historical Overview". Retrieved 2013-07-18.
6. "Raj Marphatia: Biography". Ropes & Gray. Retrieved 2012-05-02.
7. Butterfield, Fox (February 6, 1990). "First Black Elected to Head Harvard's Law Review". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
8. Kantor, Jodi (January 28, 2007). "In Law School, Obama Found Political Voice". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-01-04.
9. McKay, Caroline. "Harvard Law Review Elects First Openly Gay President". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 13 April 2011.
10. "First Hispanic To Lead Harvard Law Review | News | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com.
11. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2017-02-16. Retrieved 2017-02-16.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
12. "Harvard Law Review Membership Selection Policies". Harvard Law Review. Retrieved July 9, 2014.
13. Obama, Barack. "Review President Explains Affirmative Action Policy (letter)". The Harvard Law Record. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
14. "Prospective Transfer Students Applying for Membership". Harvard Law Review. Retrieved July 9, 2014.
15. Seo, Jane (February 7, 2012). "Tochilin '06 elected president of Harvard Law Review". The Harvard Crimson.
16. "About the Harvard Law Review". harvardlawreview.org. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
17. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/06/the-nonsense-factory-the-making-and-breaking-of-the-american-legal-system.html
18. Ben Smith & Jeffrey Ressner, Obama Kept Law Review Balanced, CBSNews.com, June 23, 2008
19. Akhil Reed Amar, Heller, HLR, and Holistic Legal Reasoning, Harvard Law Review 122:145, (2008)
20. William M. Wiecek, The Birth of the Modern Constitution: The United States Supreme Court, 1941-1953 at 84 (2006)
21. Elena Kagan, , Harvard Law Review 99 (1985)
22. Harvard Law School, Senate confirms David Barron for U.S. Court of Appeals
23. Michael Boudin, Judge Henry Friendly and the Mirror of Constitutional Law Archived 2009-02-25 at the Wayback Machine, New York University Law Review 82:975, 977 (2007)
24. Nik DeCosta-Klipa, "Merrick Garland would give Harvard Law the majority on the Supreme Court", Boston.com, Mar. 16, 2017
25. Congressional Record, Congressional Record
26. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson profile, USDC District of Columbia.
27. Richard A. Serrano, et al.,"Roberts Was Ready at Every Turn", L.A. Times, July 25, 2005
28. United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Circuit Judges' Biographical Information
29. "National Council of Jewish Women: Leading Change Since 1893". National Council of Jewish Women.
30. James Chace, Dean Acheson, in Edward S. Mihalkanin, American Statesman 2 (2004)
31. Jennifer O'Shea, Ten Things You Didn't Know About Michael Chertoff, U.S. News and World Report, Aug. 27, 2007
32. Harvard Law School, William T. Coleman Shares Stories From His 60-Year Legal Career, Apr. 14, 2007
33. Neil A. Lewis, Elliot Richardson Dies at 79; Stood Up to Nixon and Resigned in Saturday Night Massacre, New York Times, Jan. 1, 2000
34. Office of the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, Solicitor General Paul D. Clement Archived 2009-01-04 at the Wayback Machine
35. Ken Gormley, Archibald Cox: Conscience of a Nation 29-30 (1999)
36. Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC Biography: Chairman Christopher Cox
37. "Issues Archive - Harvard Law Today". today.law.harvard.edu.
38. Bancroft Associates PLLC, Viet D. Dinh Archived 2009-02-23 at the Wayback Machine
39. Office of the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, Solicitor General Charles Evans Hughes, Jr.
40. "United States Trade Representative: Michael Froman".
41. Stephen Labaton, Obama to Select Genachowski to Lead F.C.C., The Caucus, N.Y. Times, Jan. 13, 2009
42. "Ian Gershengorn '93 named deputy assistant attorney general at USDOJ". Harvard Law Today.
43. The White House. White House Author: Danielle Gray Archived 2016-01-04 at the Wayback Machine
44. "Your Witness, Mr. Murphy", Time Magazine, July 4, 1949
45. "NCTC Home". www.dni.gov.
46. News Makers, , Harvard University Gazette, February 19, 1999
47. Finn, Peter (June 23, 2011). "Pentagon names new Guantanamo prosecutor". The Washington Post.
48. vCard, Download. "Bernard W. Nussbaum". WLRK.
49. Williams & Connolly. F. Whitten Peters, Partner
50. Edward Wyatt, "White House Elevates a Commissioner to Chairwoman of the F.T.C.", N.Y. Times, Feb. 28, 2013
51. Harvard Law School, Letter to the editor: the review and the White House, in review
52. Ambassador Barry B. White Archived 2014-12-29 at the Wayback Machine
53. Skadden, Arps, Preeta D. Bansal Archived 2009-01-02 at the Wayback Machine
54. The Trilateral Commission, Allan E. Gotlieb
55. Daniel Gross, Eliot Spitzer: How New York's attorney general became the most powerful man on Wall Street, Slate, Oct. 21, 2004
56. Fraser, Graham (2003-12-18). "The best PM Canada never had". The Toronto Star. p. A10.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
57. Grimes, William. "Stephen Barnett, a Leading Legal Scholar, Dies at 73", The New York Times, October 21, 2009. Accessed October 22, 2009.
58. Mark H. Odonoghae, It's Official: Derek Bok, Harvard Crimson, Jan. 11, 1971
59. Eric Pace, Kingman Brewster Jr., 69, Ex-Yale President and U.S. Envoy, Dies, New York Times, Nov. 9, 1988
60. "Faculty". Yale Law School. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
61. "Office of the President | Meet President Krislov | PACE UNIVERSITY". www.pace.edu.
62. University, Catholic. "Meet President Garvey". The Catholic University of America.
63. Harvard Law School. Annette Gordon-Reed ’84 to join the Harvard faculty
64. Cornell Law School, Biography of Charles Hamilton Houston
65. Yale Law School, Faculty - Harold Hongju Koh
66. Terry Shepard, Meet David Lebron President-Elect of Rice University Archived 2004-08-23 at the Wayback Machine, Sallyport, Winter 2004
67. Columbia Law School, Lance Liebman
68. Office of the President, University of Texas, Biography: William Powers Jr.
69. Nina J. Easton & Kevin Cullen, To Many, He Is A Quiet Conservative, Boston Globe, July 21, 2005
70. Harvard Law School, Professor James Vorenberg, Ninth Dean of HLS
71. Texas A&M, Michael K. Young Named Sole Finalist For President Of Texas A&M
72. Barnes, Bart (June 1, 2016). "Bennet Boskey, Washington lawyer, dies at 99," Washington Post.
73. Harvard Law School, Joseph H. Flom '48 (1923 – 2011)
74. "John B. Quinn | Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP". www.quinnemanuel.com.
75. George Washington University, Philip Graham (1915-1963)
76. Library of Congress, Previous Librarians of Congress - Archibald MacLeish
77. "Speakers - World Affairs Council". www.worldaffairs.org.
78. CNN, CNN Programs - Anchors/Reporters - Jeffrey Toobin
79. Privcap, David Bonderman, Founder Partner - TPG Capital Archived 2016-03-23 at the Wayback Machine
80. Columbia College Today, "Alumni News: A Passion for Civil Liberties"
81. "Jeff Kindler | Pfizer".
82. Alvarez, Luis. "Alfred Lee Loomis: A Biographical Memoir" (PDF). National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved December 10, 2019.
83. MLB, Official Info: Rob Manfred
84. Ventures Africa, The Man Who Bought Gatwick Airport
85. New York law School, Nadine Strossen

External links

• Official website