Overview
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, and have been frequently cited as persuasive authority by the courts in the United States, although some claim that this influence 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 (e.g., Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, the NYU Journal of Law & Business, the Cornell International Law Journal, the North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology, or the Lewis & Clark Environmental Law Review). There are also a small number of journals focusing on statutory, regulatory, and public policy issues (e.g., the Journal of Legislation or the NYU Journal of Legislation & Public Policy).
In recent years, many law reviews have started to publish online-only content in addition to their respective print issues. For instance, the Harvard Law Review Forum, the Stanford Law Review Online, and the Columbia Law Review Sidebar all offer freely available pieces of short-form legal scholarship, analysis, and commentary. Further, some law journals have abandoned print entirely, instead choosing to publish all of their content only on the Internet.
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