Academic journal
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. The law review is one of three honors societies at the law school, along with the
Harvard Legal Aid Bureau
and the
Board of Student Advisors
. Students who are selected for more than one of these three organizations may only join one.
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
, the primary guide for
legal citation
formats in the United States.
History
[
edit
]
Volume 1 of the
Harvard Law Review
(1887?1888).
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 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]
In November 2023, the
Harvard Law Review
stopped the publication of an article written by
Rabea Eghbariah
, a Palestinian student at Harvard Law.
[18]
[19]
The online chairs of the
Law Review
had asked the Eghbariah to write an essay.
The Intercept
reported that the president of the
Law Review
,
Apsara Iyer
, with the support of a majority of the
Law Review
leadership, delayed the publication of the essay because of "safety concerns and the desire to deliberate with editors."
[19]
The
Law Review
ultimately did not publish the article, and it was later published in
The Nation
.
[20]
25
Law Review
editors criticized the decision not to publish the article, calling it an "unprecedented decision [that] threatens academic freedom and perpetuates the suppression of Palestinian voices."
[19]
Alumni
[
edit
]
President of the United States
[
edit
]
Barack Obama
Supreme Court Justices
[
edit
]
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Other jurists
[
edit
]
- David J. Barron
, judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
, served as articles editor
[26]
- Andrew L. Brasher
, judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
- Michael Boudin
, judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
, served as president of volume 77
[22]
: 182 n.141
- Henry Friendly
, late judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
, served as president
[27]
- Learned Hand
, late judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
, served as an editor but later resigned.
- Harris Hartz
, judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
, served as case and developments editor
[28]
- 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
[29]
- Pierre Leval
, judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
, served as notes editor
[30]
- Debra Ann Livingston
, judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
[30]
- 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.
- James L. Oakes
, late judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
[30]
- Nina Pillard
, judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
[31]
- Richard Posner
, judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
, served as president of volume 75
: 184
- Lawrence VanDyke
, judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
.
Cabinet secretaries
[
edit
]
Merrick Garland
Mike Pompeo
- Dean Acheson
, Secretary of State
[32]
- Michael Chertoff
, Secretary of Homeland Security and former judge on
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
[33]
- William Coleman Jr.
, Secretary of Transportation,
Brown v. Board of Education
attorney, and first African-American Supreme Court clerk
[34]
- Merrick Garland
, 86th
United States Attorney General
; Judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
, served as articles editor
[35]
- Mike Pompeo
, former
US Secretary of State
- Elliot Richardson
, Attorney General, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Commerce, served as president (1947)
[36]
Other U.S. government officials
[
edit
]
- Paul Clement
, former U.S. Solicitor General, served as Supreme Court editor
[37]
- Archibald Cox
, late U.S. Solicitor General
[38]
- Christopher Cox
, former chairman of
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
[39]
- Ted Cruz
,
U.S. Senator
from
Texas
[40]
- Viet Dinh
, former Assistant Attorney General, served as
Bluebook
editor
[41]
- Charles Evans Hughes Jr.
, former U.S. Solicitor General
[42]
- Michael Froman
,
U.S. Trade Representative
[43]
- Julius Genachowski
, former chairman of the
Federal Communications Commission
[44]
- Ian Gershengorn
, former acting U.S. Solicitor General
[45]
- Danielle Gray, former
Cabinet Secretary
[46]
- 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
[47]
- Ron Klain
, Chief of staff to Vice Presidents
Al Gore
and
Joe Biden
, Chief of Staff to the 46th president of the United States
Joe Biden
[8]
- Christopher Landau
, former
United States Ambassador to Mexico
, served as articles editor
[48]
- Michael Leiter
, former Director of the U.S.
National Counterterrorism Center
,
[49]
president of volume 113
[50]
- Mark S. Martins
, Brigadier General in the
United States Army Judge Advocate General's Corps
, Chief Prosecutor of Military Commissions
[51]
- Bernard Nussbaum
, former
White House Counsel
, served as notes editor
[52]
- F. Whitten Peters
, former
Secretary of the Air Force
, served as president
[53]
- Edith Ramirez
, chairwoman of the
Federal Trade Commission
[54]
- Rod Rosenstein
,
U.S. Deputy Attorney General
- Jamie Raskin
, U.S. Representative from
Maryland
- Robert A. Taft
, U.S. Senator from
Ohio
[55]
- Barry B. White
, former
United States Ambassador to Norway
[56]
- Robert L. Deitz
, former
General Counsel
for the
National Security Agency
and Senior Counsel to the
Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency
, served as notes editor and Supreme Court Note.
[57]
Other government officials
[
edit
]
Academics
[
edit
]
- Stephen Barnett
, legal scholar at
University of California, Berkeley School of Law
who opposed the
Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970
[62]
- Alexander Bickel
, late professor at
Yale Law School
- Derek Bok
, former president of
Harvard University
[63]
- Kingman Brewster
, former president of
Yale University
, served as treasurer
[64]
- Amy Chua
, professor at Yale Law School, served as executive editor
[65]
- Stephen J. Friedman
, president of
Pace University
[66]
- John H. Garvey
, president of
The Catholic University of America
[67]
- I. Glenn Cohen
, professor at Harvard Law School.
- Annette Gordon-Reed
, professor at Harvard Law School and winner of the
Pulitzer Prize for History
[68]
- 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
[69]
- 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
[70]
- David Leebron
, president of
Rice University
, served as president
[71]
- Lance Liebman
, former Dean of
Columbia Law School
, served as president
[72]
- Kenneth Mack
, professor and historian at Harvard Law School.
- William C. Powers
, former president of
University of Texas
, served as managing editor
[73]
- 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
[74]
- James Vorenberg
, former dean of Harvard Law School, served as president
[75]
- Michael K. Young
, president of
Texas A&M University
[76]
Other attorneys
[
edit
]
Writers and journalists
[
edit
]
Other alumni
[
edit
]
- David Bonderman
, co-founder of private equity firm
TPG Capital
[86]
- Norman Dorsen
, former
American Civil Liberties Union
president
[87]
- Jeff Kindler
, former CEO of
Pfizer
[88]
- Alfred Lee Loomis
, financier, scientist, and inventor
[89]
- Rob Manfred
, commissioner of
Major League Baseball
, served as articles editor
[90]
- Adebayo Ogunlesi
, chairman and managing partner of
Global Infrastructure Partners
[91]
- Harvey Schein
, former president and chief executive of the
Sony Corporation of America
[92]
- Nadine Strossen
, former
American Civil Liberties Union
president
[93]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Journals Ranked by Impact: Law".
2011 Journal Citation Reports
.
Web of Science
(Science ed.).
Thomson Reuters
. 2012.
- ^
Friedman, Lawrence M. (2005).
A History of American Law
(3rd ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 481.
ISBN
0684869888
.
- ^
Greenfield, Jill (2011).
"
"She Rose Above Obstacles With Ease" Priscilla Holmes '55: 1924?2010"
.
Harvard Law Bulletin
.
- ^
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
.
- ^
"Women and Law Review: An Historical Overview"
. 9 October 2003
. Retrieved
2013-07-18
.
- ^
"Raj Marphatia: Biography"
.
Ropes & Gray
. Retrieved
2012-05-02
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Butterfield, Fox (February 6, 1990).
"First Black Elected to Head Harvard's Law Review"
.
The New York Times
. Retrieved
8 September
2017
.
- ^
a
b
Kantor, Jodi (January 28, 2007).
"In Law School, Obama Found Political Voice"
.
The New York Times
. Retrieved
2008-01-04
.
- ^
McKay, Caroline.
"Harvard Law Review Elects First Openly Gay President"
. The Harvard Crimson
. Retrieved
13 April
2011
.
- ^
"First Hispanic To Lead Harvard Law Review | News | The Harvard Crimson"
.
www.thecrimson.com
.
- ^
"Harvard Law Review Elects First Black Female President"
.
MSN
. Archived from
the original
on 2017-02-16
. Retrieved
2017-02-16
.
- ^
a
b
c
"Harvard Law Review Membership Selection Policies"
. Harvard Law Review
. Retrieved
July 9,
2014
.
- ^
a
b
Obama, Barack (30 October 2008).
"Review President Explains Affirmative Action Policy (letter)"
. The Harvard Law Record
. Retrieved
August 3,
2012
.
- ^
"Prospective Transfer Students Applying for Membership"
. Harvard Law Review
. Retrieved
July 9,
2014
.
- ^
Seo, Jane (February 7, 2012).
"Tochilin '06 elected president of Harvard Law Review"
.
The Harvard Crimson
.
- ^
"About the Harvard Law Review"
.
harvardlawreview.org
. Retrieved
2018-04-23
.
- ^
"*The Nonsense Factory: The Making and Breaking of the American Legal System"
. 30 June 2019.
- ^
Tait, Robert (22 November 2023).
"Harvard journal accused of censoring article alleging genocide in Gaza"
.
theguardian.com
.
- ^
a
b
c
Lennard, Natasha (2023-11-22).
"Harvard Law Review Editors Vote to Kill Article About Genocide in Gaza"
.
The Intercept
. Retrieved
2023-11-27
.
- ^
Eghbariah, Rabea (2023-11-22).
"The "Harvard Law Review" Refused to Run This Piece About Genocide in Gaza"
.
ISSN
0027-8378
. Retrieved
2023-11-27
.
- ^
Ben Smith & Jeffrey Ressner,
Obama Kept Law Review Balanced
, CBSNews.com, June 23, 2008
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Akhil Reed Amar,
Heller, HLR, and Holistic Legal Reasoning
,
Harvard Law Review
122:145, (2008)
- ^
William M. Wiecek,
The Birth of the Modern Constitution: The United States Supreme Court, 1941?1953
at 84 (2006)
- ^
District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
profile, USDC District of Columbia.
- ^
Elena Kagan,
[1]
,
Harvard Law Review
99 (1985)
- ^
Harvard Law School,
Senate confirms David Barron for U.S. Court of Appeals
- ^
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)
- ^
Congressional Record,
Congressional Record
- ^
Richard A. Serrano, et al.,
"Roberts Was Ready at Every Turn"
,
Los Angeles Times
, July 25, 2005
- ^
a
b
c
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
Circuit Judges' Biographical Information
Archived
2013-02-10 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
"National Council of Jewish Women: Leading Change Since 1893"
.
National Council of Jewish Women
.
- ^
James Chace
,
Dean Acheson
, in Edward S. Mihalkanin,
American Statesman
2 (2004)
- ^
Jennifer O'Shea,
Ten Things You Didn't Know About Michael Chertoff,
U.S. News & World Report
, Aug. 27, 2007
- ^
Harvard Law School,
William T. Coleman Shares Stories From His 60-Year Legal Career
, Apr. 14, 2007
- ^
Nik DeCosta-Klipa,
"Merrick Garland would give Harvard Law the majority on the Supreme Court"
,
Boston.com
, Mar. 16, 2017
- ^
Neil A. Lewis,
Elliot Richardson Dies at 79; Stood Up to Nixon and Resigned in Saturday Night Massacre
,
The New York Times
, Jan. 1, 2000
- ^
Office of the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice,
Solicitor General Paul D. Clement
Archived
2009-01-04 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Ken Gormley,
Archibald Cox: Conscience of a Nation
29?30 (1999)
- ^
Securities and Exchange Commission,
SEC Biography: Chairman Christopher Cox
- ^
"Issues Archive ? Harvard Law Today"
.
today.law.harvard.edu
.
- ^
Bancroft Associates PLLC,
Viet D. Dinh
Archived
2009-02-23 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Office of the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice,
Solicitor General Charles Evans Hughes, Jr.
- ^
"United States Trade Representative: Michael Froman"
.
- ^
Stephen Labaton,
Obama to Select Genachowski to Lead F.C.C.
, The Caucus,
The New York Times
, January 13, 2009
- ^
"Ian Gershengorn '93 named deputy assistant attorney general at USDOJ"
.
Harvard Law Today
.
- ^
The White House.
White House Author: Danielle Gray
Archived
2020-11-24 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
"The Judiciary: Your Witness, Mr. Murphy"
,
Time
, July 4, 1949
- ^
"PN523 ? Christopher Landau ? Department of State"
.
United States Congress
. August 1, 2019
. Retrieved
August 5,
2019
.
- ^
"NCTC Home"
.
www.dni.gov
.
- ^
News Makers,
[2]
, Harvard University Gazette, February 19, 1999
- ^
Finn, Peter (June 23, 2011).
"Pentagon names new Guantanamo prosecutor"
.
The Washington Post
.
- ^
vCard, Download.
"Bernard W. Nussbaum"
.
WLRK
.
- ^
Williams & Connolly.
F. Whitten Peters, Partner
- ^
Edward Wyatt,
"White House Elevates a Commissioner to Chairwoman of the F.T.C."
,
The New York Times
, February 28, 2013
- ^
Harvard Law School,
Letter to the editor: the review and the White House, in review
- ^
Ambassador Barry B. White
Archived
2014-12-29 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
"Robert L. Deitz | Schar School of Policy and Government"
.
schar.gmu.edu
. Retrieved
2020-09-07
.
- ^
Skadden, Arps,
Preeta D. Bansal
Archived
2009-01-02 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
The Trilateral Commission,
Allan E. Gotlieb
Archived
2006-11-14 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Daniel Gross,
Eliot Spitzer: How New York's attorney general became the most powerful man on Wall Street
, Slate, Oct. 21, 2004
- ^
Fraser, Graham (2003-12-18). "The best PM Canada never had".
The Toronto Star
. p. A10.
- ^
Grimes, William.
"Stephen Barnett, a Leading Legal Scholar, Dies at 73"
,
The New York Times
, October 21, 2009. Accessed October 22, 2009.
- ^
Mark H. Odonoghae,
It's Official: Derek Bok
, Harvard Crimson, Jan. 11, 1971
- ^
Eric Pace,
Kingman Brewster Jr., 69, Ex-Yale President and U.S. Envoy, Dies
,
The New York Times
, Nov. 9, 1988
- ^
"Faculty"
.
Yale Law School
. Retrieved
18 November
2014
.
- ^
"Office of the President | Meet President Krislov | PACE UNIVERSITY"
.
www.pace.edu
.
- ^
University, Catholic.
"Meet President Garvey"
.
The Catholic University of America
.
- ^
Harvard Law School.
Annette Gordon-Reed ’84 to join the Harvard faculty
- ^
Cornell Law School,
Biography of Charles Hamilton Houston
- ^
Yale Law School,
Faculty ? Harold Hongju Koh
- ^
Terry Shepard,
Meet David Lebron President-Elect of Rice University
Archived
2004-08-23 at the
Wayback Machine
,
Sallyport
, Winter 2004
- ^
Columbia Law School,
Lance Liebman
- ^
Office of the President, University of Texas,
Biography: William Powers Jr.
- ^
Nina J. Easton & Kevin Cullen,
To Many, He Is A Quiet Conservative
,
The Boston Globe
, July 21, 2005
- ^
Harvard Law School,
Professor James Vorenberg, Ninth Dean of HLS
- ^
Texas A&M,
Michael K. Young Named Sole Finalist For President Of Texas A&M
- ^
Barnes, Bart (June 1, 2016).
"Bennet Boskey, Washington lawyer, dies at 99"
,
The Washington Post
.
- ^
Harvard Law School,
Joseph H. Flom '48 (1923?2011)
- ^
"John B. Quinn | Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP"
.
www.quinnemanuel.com
.
- ^
"January 6 United States Capitol attack"
.
,
- ^
The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/16/kenneth-cheseboro-trump-indictment-fake-electors/
.
- ^
George Washington University,
Philip Graham (1915?1963)
- ^
Library of Congress,
Previous Librarians of Congress ? Archibald MacLeish
- ^
"Speakers ? World Affairs Council"
.
www.worldaffairs.org
.
- ^
CNN,
CNN Programs ? Anchors/Reporters ? Jeffrey Toobin
- ^
Privcap,
David Bonderman, Founder Partner ? TPG Capital
Archived
2016-03-23 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Columbia College Today,
"Alumni News: A Passion for Civil Liberties"
- ^
"Jeff Kindler | Pfizer"
.
- ^
Alvarez, Luis.
"Alfred Lee Loomis: A Biographical Memoir"
(PDF)
. National Academy of Sciences
. Retrieved
December 10,
2019
.
- ^
MLB,
Official Info: Rob Manfred
- ^
Ventures Africa,
The Man Who Bought Gatwick Airport
- ^
New York Times,
Harvey Schein, Promoter of Betamax at Sony, Dies at 80
- ^
New York law School,
Nadine Strossen
External links
[
edit
]