The idea of founding the Columbia Law Review was first suggested by the writer in the spring of the year 1900 and the first number was published in January, 1901. The Review therefore, is the same age as the present century.
The writer had felt during his first two years at the Columbia Law School that, in spite of the remarkable teachers on its faculty and the standing of the school in the public estimation, there was a certain lack of organization and incentive in the student life.
Quite naturally his attention was challenged by the interest and enthusiasm felt by friends who were at Harvard and happened to be connected with the Harvard Law Review. He was, however, very loath to stand sponsor for the project of a Columbia Law Review unless something happened which would make it seem not inappropriate that he should take the matter up with the Faculty. He feared a quo warranto by his classmates.
The excuse needed came in the spring of 1900, when the elections to The Moot, a scholarship society which had not occupied a place of great prominence in the student life, were given out, and five members of the Class of 1901 were added to it. The men selected were Joseph E. Corrigan, Beverley R. Robinson, Herman F. Robinson, Forsyth Wickes, and the writer.
The election to this scholarship society, whether deserved or not, seemed to afford an opportunity of taking up seriously the question of founding a Law Review at Columbia.
After talking the matter over with Corrigan, he and the writer went to see Dean Keener about it. Dean Keener received the idea with hospitality, but said that he would not allow a Law Review to be published unless it could be assured of a reasonable lifetime before the first publication began. He further required that it should follow closely the lines of the Harvard Law Review, and that, if possible, an endeavor should be made to reach the high standard already long maintained by the Harvard Law Review.
The matter was then taken up with the other members of The Moot, and they added to their number five additional members of the Class of 1901: Louis Samter Levy, George G. Schreiber, C. Boardman Tyler, Burton W. Wilson and Harold Walker.
Thus was constituted an association of ten men which was subsequently organized into a Law Review Board by the election of Corrigan as Editor in Chief, Woolsey as Secretary, Tyler as Treasurer, and Levy as Business Manager. Walker was selected as Editor in charge of the department of recent decisions.
The organization of the Columbia Law Review was made somewhat different to that of the Harvard Law Review, as we then understood it.
The reason was that a great deal of work had to be done in order to secure contributions of articles. Hence there was a Secretary elected to deal with this aspect of the new Review.
The plan was, as it is now, that the only part of the Review to be written by the students of the Law School should be the notes of cases and the recent decisions. Dean Keener required that the leading articles and the book reviews should be written by persons outside of the undergraduate body. He also stated that the Review could not commence publication until twenty-four articles, three for each issue of the first volume, were on hand, or enough reasonably assured.
The establishment of the Review, therefor, was difficult because the editors were not in a position to pay any contributors for articles, and, consequently, had to get promises from contributors to write articles without compensation for an nonexistent periodical.
The difficulty of this situation was extreme and it was subsequently complicated by the fact that some articles were received which the Editors felt they could not use. Consequently, the first Law Review Board was in the unique position of being both a beggar and chooser!
The difficult task of rejecting articles which were sent in reply to requests was successfully surmounted in at least one instance by writing to the contributor that we felt his work was "worthy of a larger public than we could give it," a form of editorial refusal which was tactful and did not make the writer an enemy.
Every effort was made to publish a magazine which would be well done in form as well as substance and pains were not spared in any detail. Even the matter of a seal for the Review was the subject of great consideration.
The seal finally chosen, which appears on the cover of each issue and on the title page of the bound volumes, was copied in design from the seal of a medieval law school. We were indebted for the seal to the good offices of the professors of the Latin Department. The lettering was done by him and is, I believe classically correct.
The aim of the Review was, if possible, to have articles of practical as well as scientific value and have book reviews which were independent and thorough. The original editors had to depend on outsiders entirely for reviewing, because at that time there did not exist that now fast growing class of ex-editors of the Law Review, always glad to exchange a short article for a new book!
Perhaps the first volume of the Review, while fairly satisfactory, did not measure up to the standard of its successors. This was due to lack of tradition and to inexperience.
On the other hand, the original Board of Editors did not have some of the difficulties which beset later Boards. In writing notes or in reviewing recent cases we did not have to look back through earlier numbers of the Review to see what expression of opinion the Review had given on similar questions---there was no stare decisis to be maintained. To be new gave us a great many disadvantages on the side of getting articles promised and delivered and in getting book reviews written, but it had wonderful advantages so far as the undergraduate work was concerned.
I have often reflected how many courts would have envied our virgin freedom!
It is pleasant to realize that the foundations of the Law Review were, apparently, well laid, and to see that the standard has improved from year to year and that the Review has now come, I believe, to be generally recognized as one of the two or three important legal magazines in the United States. That it has kept pace with changing conditions is witnessed by the Current Legislation Department which helps in its small way to illumine a statute-ridden world.
I notice from reading my report as secretary, submitted at the last meeting of the first Editorial Board, in the spring of 1901, that up to then we had received nineteen articles, had published fifteen and returned three; that seven articles were due during the spring of that year and that there were twelve articles promised for the following year. Thus the requirements laid down by Dean Keener for sufficient assurances to give three articles for each of the eight numbers of the Review had been achieved.
It is interesting to note that each of the members of the Law Faculty promised an article during each of the first three years of the Review but that most of them failed to fulfill their undertakings, even in part. Doubtless they felt relieved of their obligations when they found that enough outside articles were obtainable to keep the project going!
There were many points to be covered by the organizers of a Review of this kind, and I remember that a great deal of pains was taken in drawing up the by-laws under which the editors were to operate because it was thought desirable that the kind of type used and the methods of citing cases should from the beginning be standardized so that the appearance of the Review should always be the same. The first Board learns with pride that practically all its rules are still in force.
If, as I believe to be the case, the Law Review is generally regarded as a real contribution to periodical American legal literature, it has justified, its twenty-five years' career and the purpose of the founders has been achieved. It rests with the graduates of the school to make its future success possible.
The Law School needs the Law Review in order to express itself. Without the Review the Law School would necessarily be somewhat inarticulate.
For a great Law School to be without a law periodical is really crippling the School, because when there is not such a periodical there is no forum in which the Faculty and graduates of the Law School feel that they have an opportunity of discussing questions which may interest them; and the students have not the incentive of scholarship competition which leads to election to the Review, or the excellent training for brief writing which is afforded by writing Editorial Comment and notes of recent cases.
It is gratifying for the supporters of the Review to observe that in the last decade, the Courts, both State and Federal, have begun to refer more and more frequently to the Review and other similar periodicals as sources of authority, and that this reference is not only to contributed articles but, perhaps, more frequently to the Editorial Comment. As the Bench does, so does a wise Bar with the natural result that the influence of a review like this spreads into places undreamed of at its inception.
The first year was a year full of anxieties and perplexities. The Review was living from hand to mouth both in regard to its finances and its contributions. Our troubles were many.
But, although the first Board of Editors may have had many hard problems to overcome, Virgil was right when he said:
"Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit."
---Aeneid I, 203.
