Law review

A law review (or law journal) is a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues. In the US, law reviews are normally published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association. Outside of North America, law reviews are usually edited by senior academics/faculty.

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).

The primary function of a law review is to publish scholarship in the field of law. Law reviews publish lengthy, comprehensive treatments of subjects ("articles"), generally written by law professors, judges, or legal practitioners, as well as shorter pieces, commonly called "notes" and "comments," written by law student "members" of the law review.

Law review articles often express the thinking of specialists or experts with regard to problems with current law and potential solutions to those problems. Historically, law review articles have been influential in the development of the law; they have been frequently cited as persuasive authority by the courts in the United States. For example, Justice Stanley Mosk of the Supreme Court of California admitted that he got the idea for market share liability from the Fordham Law Review comment cited extensively in the court's landmark decision in Sindell v. Abbott Laboratories (1980). However, in recent years, some have claimed that the traditional influence of law reviews is declining.

Most major American law schools publish a law review (or "law journal"), generally dealing with all areas of law and named after the school, and some publish specialized reviews, dealing with a particular area of the law, in addition to or in place of the general law review, such as civil rights and civil liberties, international law, environmental law, or human rights. There are also a small number of journals focusing on statutory, regulatory, and public policy issues. See List of law reviews in the United States for details.

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