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The National Law Journal, a U.S. periodical founded in 1978, reports legal information of national importance to attorneys, including federal circuit court^{[clarification needed]} decisions, verdicts, practitioners' columns, coverage of legislative issues and legal news for the business and private sectors.

The tabloid-sized weekly newspaper is owned by ALM.

See also[link]

• List of largest U.S. law firms by number of lawyers - generated from The National Law Journal's rankings of the 250 largest American law firms by size, commonly referred to as the "NLJ 250".
• United States federal courts

External links[link]

• The National Law Journal

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A law review (or law journal) is a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues, normally published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association.^[1] The term is also used to describe the extracurricular activity at law schools of publishing the journal.

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).

History of law reviews in the United States[link]

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The University of Pennsylvania Law Review is the oldest law review in the U.S., having published continuously since 1852.^[2] Also among the oldest and most storied law review publications are the Albany Law Review, successor to the Albany Law School Journal, which began in 1875 and was the nation's first student-edited law review;^[3] the Columbia Law Review, successor to the Columbia Jurist, beginning in 1885; the Harvard Law Review, beginning in 1887;^[4] Yale Law Journal, beginning in 1891; West Virginia Law Review, beginning in 1894;^[5] and Dickinson Law Review, beginning in 1897.^[6] The first law review originating outside of the Northeast was the Michigan Law Review, beginning in 1902; followed by the Northwestern University Law Review, beginning in 1906; and the Kentucky Law Journal, beginning in 1910. The California Law Review, beginning in 1912, was the nation's first law review published west of Illinois.^[7]

Overview[link]

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.^[8]

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.^[9]

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,^[10] 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.

Editorial staff[link]

United States[link]

As law professor Erwin N. Griswold wrote of the Harvard Law Review: "Some people are concerned that a major legal periodical in the United States is edited and managed by students. It is an unusual situation, but it started that way, and it developed mightily from its own strength."^[11] During the 1990s, the American Bar Association followed suit and began coordinating its own practitioner journals with law schools, courting student editorial bodies for publications including Administrative Law Review, The International Lawyer, Public Contract Law Journal, and The Urban Lawyer.^[12] Despite Griswold's confidence in student editors, criticism of this practice continues. In 2004, Judge Richard Posner wrote a critical account entitled "Against the Law Reviews" in the magazine Legal Affairs.^[13] However, Judge Posner also wrote that his own time as President of the Harvard Law Review represented a “Golden Age… for student-edited law reviews”.^[14]

Canada[link]

In Canada, the fully student-run law reviews (without a Faculty Editor-in-Chief) include, in order of the frequency they are cited by the Supreme Court of Canada:^[15] the McGill Law Journal/Revue de droit de McGill, the Queen's Law Journal, the Alberta Law Review, University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review, the University of Ottawa Law Review, and the University of British Columbia Law Review. Membership requires demanding time commitments, and many editors move on to top clerkships, top articling or first year associate positions both inside and outside of Canada, or eventually join the legal professoriate in Canada. The country also has several specialized publications run entirely by students.

Continental Europe[link]

Outside of North America, student-run law reviews are the exception rather than the norm. In Continental Europe law reviews are almost uniformly edited by academics. However, a small number of student-edited law reviews have recently sprung into existence in Germany (Ad Legendum, Bucerius Law Journal, Freilaw Freiburg Law Students Journal, Goettingen Journal of International Law, Hanse Law Review, Marburg Law Review, StudZR Heidelberg Student Law Review) and the Czech Republic (Common Law Review). A student-run publication has also been established in Italy, under the name Bocconi School of Law Student-Edited Papers, adopting the format of working paper series, as a way to complement - rather than compete with - peer-reviewed publications and offer scholars an additional round of feedback.^[16] In relation to the law of the European Union, the leading journals such as the Common Market Law Review are also not student run.

United Kingdom[link]

Within the United Kingdom, as in the rest of the Commonwealth outside of North America, all of the leading law reviews are edited and run by academics. The leading law reviews in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth more generally are the Law Quarterly Review, the Modern Law Review, the Cambridge Law Journal and the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. None is student run or edited.

The UCL Jurisprudence Review was the first student law review when it began publishing in 1994. Since then, the Edinburgh Student Law Review,^[17] Student Journal of Law,^[18] Cambridge Student Law Review, UCL Human Rights Review, Warwick Student Law Review,^[19] "Durham Law Review",^[20] and the Southampton Student Law Review^[21] have also emerged.

Ireland[link]

In Ireland, the leading student law reviews are the Trinity College Law Review, the UCD Law Review, the Irish Student Law Review and the Cork Online Law Review.

Nordic Countries[link]

In Iceland, Úlfljótur Law Review, has been in publication since 1947. In 2007 it celebrated its 60th anniversary. Since its creation in 1947 it has been edited and run by students at the Department of Law, University of Iceland. Úlfljótur Law Review is the most senior of all academic journals still in publication at the university and held in great respect by Icelandic jurists and legal scholars.

In Finland, Helsinki Law Review, edited by students at the University of Helsinki, has been active since 2007. Earlier, University of Turku published Turku Law Journal from 1999 to 2003.

Sweden's first law review is Juridisk Publikation. The first number of Juridisk Publikation was published in April 2009. It originated as a review by students from Stockholm University. It is now delivered to Swedish law students from all universities, but edited by top students from the law schools in Lund, Stockholm and Uppsala.

In Norway, the first student edited law review Jussens Venner was founded in 1952 by students Carsten Smith and Torkel Opsahl (both of whom later became distinguished academics). Occasionally it features peer-reviewed articles, but its editors are composed of one student from the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo and one student from the Faculty of Law at the University of Bergen. Its articles are mainly related to the curriculum at these universities.

Australia[link]

In Australia, the leading student-edited peer-reviewed academic law reviews are the Melbourne University Law Review and Sydney Law Review, although the Melbourne University Law Review regularly outperforms Sydney Law Review on impact, citation in journal and cases and combined rankings.^[22] These publications are among the most-cited law reviews by the High Court of Australia and among the most cited non-US reviews by US journals. ^[23] The top international law journal in Australia is the Melbourne Journal of International Law, also a student-edited peer-reviewed academic law review. [1] The Melbourne Journal of International Law is also considered to be more influential and prestigious than most generalist law reviews in Australia.^[22] The top ten ranked Australian law reviews, according to impact, citations and combined rankings, are:^[22]

Brazil[link]

In Brazil, law reviews are usually run by academics as well, but there are efforts by students to change this. The University of Brasilia Law Students Review (REDUnB) was reborn in 2007, and is now on its 8th edition. However, academics and official rankings usually refuse to evaluate student law reviews as "equals". To pursue academic recognition by the Brazilian Ministry of Education, review bodies must include post-graduated and ranked academics, which prevents students law reviews to even be recognized or compared to other similar legal periodicals.

India[link]

Among academic law journals in India, the Journal of Indian Law Institute and the Delhi Law Review published by the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi since 1972 are most prominent and respected among Indian legal scholars and academicians.^{[citation needed]}

National Law Schools/Universities are now leading the law review publication field,^{[citation needed]} with notable reviews^{[says who?]} being the NALSAR Student Law Review and the National Law School of India Review.

Online legal research providers[link]

Online legal research providers such as Westlaw and LexisNexis give users access to the complete text of most law reviews published beginning from the late 1980s. Another such service, Heinonline, provides actual scans of the pages of law reviews going back to the 1850s. On 17 March 1995, the Web Journal of Current Legal Issues, became the first law review available exclusively on the Internet.

Student activity[link]

Membership on the law review staff is highly sought after by some law students, as it often has a significant impact on their subsequent careers as attorneys. Many federal judges and partners at the most prestigious law firms were members or editors of their school's law review. There are a number of reasons why journal membership is desired by some students :

• some see the intense writing, research and editing experience as invaluable to the student's development as an attorney;
• others see the selection process as helping differentiate the best and the brightest from an already strong group of law students.

At schools with more than one law review, membership on the main or flagship journal is normally considered more prestigious than membership on a specialty law journal. This is not the case at all schools, however. At many schools, the more prestigious journal is the specialty journal; a low-ranked general journal will rarely attract as much attention as a category-leading specialized journal. Often the best indicator is the age of the journal; a newer journal will rarely have the same clout with employers that the older journal has, even when the older journal is specialized. In any case, membership on any such journal is a valuable credential when searching out employment after law school.

The paths to membership vary from law school to law school, and also from journal to journal, but generally contain a few of the same basic elements. Most law reviews select members after their first year of studies either through a writing competition (often referred to as "writing on" to the law review), their first-year grades (referred to as "grading on" to the law review) or some combination thereof.^[24] A number of schools will also grant membership to students who independently submit a publishable article. The write-on competition usually requires applicants to compose a written analysis of a specific legal topic, often a recent Supreme Court decision. The written submissions are often of a set length, and applicants are sometimes provided with some or all of the background research. Submissions normally are graded blindly, with submissions identified only by a number which the graders will not be able to connect to a particular applicant. A student who has been selected for law review membership is said to have "made the law review."

Secondary journals vary widely in their membership process. For example, at Yale Law School, the only one of its nine journals that has a competitive membership process is the flagship Yale Law Journal—all others are open to any Yale Law student who wishes to join. By contrast, other secondary journals may have their own separate membership competition, or may hold a joint competition with the main law review.

A law review's membership is normally divided into staff members and editors. On most law reviews, all 2Ls (second-year students) are staff members while some or all 3Ls (third-year students) serve as editors. 3Ls also typically fill the senior editorial staff positions, including senior articles editor, senior note & comment editor, senior managing editor, and, the most prestigious of all, editor-in-chief of the law review. (Upon graduation, the editor-in-chief of the law review can often expect to be highly recruited by the most prestigious law firms.) As members, students are normally expected to :

• write a note or comment of publishable quality (although it need not actually be published), and to
• edit and cite-check the articles that are being published by the law review, ensuring that references support what the author claims they support and that footnotes are in proper Bluebook format, depending on the publication's preference.

The editorial staff is normally responsible for reviewing and selecting articles for publication, managing the editing process, and assisting members in writing their notes and comments. Depending on the law school, students may receive academic credit for their work on the law review, although some journals are entirely extracurricular.

See also[link]

• Bar journal

References[link]

External links[link]

• John Doyle, Law Journals: Submissions and Ranking
• Ronen Perry, De Jure (sic) Park (an article about the future of law reviews)
• Ronen Perry, Correlation versus Causality: Further Thoughts on the Law Review/Law School Liaison
• Ronen Perry, The Relative Value of American Law Reviews: A Critical Appraisal of Ranking Methods
• Ronen Perry, The Relative Value of American Law Reviews: Refinement and Implementation
• University Law Review Project
• Reviews with Online Content
• Current Law Journal Content
• Contents Pages from Law Reviews and Other Scholarly Journals
• Bernard Hibbitts, Last Writes? Re-assessing the Law Review in the Age of Cyberspace
• Wes Henricksen, Making Law Review: The Expert's Guide to Mastering the Write-On Competition
• Current Issues of Top Law Reviews

A central government is the government of a nation-state and is more typically a characteristic of a unitary state. This is not the same thing as a federal government which may have distinct powers at various levels authorized or delegated to it by its member states, though the adjective 'central' is sometimes used to describe it.^[1] The structure of central governments varies. Many countries have created autonomous regions by delegating powers from the central government to governments at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Based on a broad definition of a basic political system, there are two or more levels of government that exist within an established territory and govern through common institutions with overlapping or shared powers as prescribed by a constitution or other law.

Usual responsibilities of this level of government which are not granted to lower levels are maintaining national security and exercising international diplomacy, including the right to sign binding treaties. Basically, the central government has the power to make laws for the whole country, in contrast with local governments. For definition of levels of government see also general government (in economics).

Generally, the difference between a central government and a federal government is that the autonomous status of self-governing regions exists by the sufferance of the central government and are often created through a process of devolution. As such they may be unilaterally revoked with a simple change in the law. An example of this was done in 1973 when the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973 abolished the government of Northern Ireland which had been created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. It is common for a federal government to be brought into being by agreement between a number of formally independent states and therefore its powers to affect the status of the balance of powers is significantly smaller (i.e. The United States). Thus federal governments are often established voluntarily from 'below' whereas devolution grants self-government from 'above'.

Examples of (non-federal) central governments[link]

There are many countries which have delegated powers, some include:

•  People's Republic of China government - see Autonomous areas of China
•  Denmark government - see the autonomous regions of Faroe Islands and Greenland
•  France government
•  ROC government
•  Georgia government - see autonomous republics
•  India government
•  Soviet Union government - see Republics of the Soviet Union
•  Spain government - see autonomous communities
•  Sudan government - see South Sudan, which is now independent
•  Portugal government - see autonomous regions of Portugal
•  Ukraine government - see, the autonomous Republic of Crimea
•  United Kingdom government - devolved powers to governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Examples of federal governments[link]

A federal government is the common or national government of a federation. Examples include:

•  Australia government
•  Austria government
•  Argentina government
•  Belgium government
•  Brazil government

•  Canada government
•  Germany government
•  Malaysia government
•  Mexico government
•  Nigeria government
•  Pakistan government
•  Russia government
•  Switzerland government
•  United States government
•  Venezuela government

The United States is considered the first modern federation. After declaring independence from Britain, the U.S. adopted its first constitution, the Articles of Confederation in 1781. This was the first step towards federalism by establishing the confederal Congress. However, Congress was limited as to its ability to pursue economic, military, and judiciary reform. In 1787, the Second Continental Congress drafted the United States Constitution during the Philadelphia Convention. After the ratification of the Constitution by nine states in 1788, the U.S. was officially a federation, but putting the U.S. in a unique position where the central government exists by the sufferance of the individual states rather than the reverse.

Other states followed suit in establishing federal governments: Switzerland (1848); Canada (1867); Germany (1871 and again 1949); Australia (1901); Austria (1920 and again 1945) and India (1947 and again 1950).^[2]

Examples of confederations[link]

• Articles of Confederation
• Confederate States of America
• European Union

See also[link]

• List of autonomous areas by country
• Autonomous government
• National government (disambiguation)
• Federation

References[link]