The Northwestern University Law Review is a scholarly legal publication and student organization at Northwestern University School of Law

Northwestern University School of Law

The Northwestern University School of Law is a private American law school in Chicago, Illinois. The law school was founded in 1859 as the Union College of Law of the Old University of Chicago. The first law school established in Chicago, it became jointly controlled by Northwestern University in...

. The Law Review's primary purpose is to publish a journal of broad legal scholarship. The Law Review publishes four issues each year. Student editors make the editorial and organizational decisions and select articles submitted by professors, judges, and practitioners, as well as student pieces. The Law Review recently extended its presence onto the web, and now publishes scholarly pieces weekly on the Colloquy

Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy

The Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy is a scholarly legal journal that is the online companion to the Northwestern University Law Review located at the Northwestern University School of Law...

.

First published in 1906 as the "Illinois Law Review," the law review

Law review

A law review is a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues, normally published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association...

 has been staffed and managed by numerous individuals who went on to become well-known legal scholars and practitioners. Prior Editors in Chief

Editor in chief

An editor-in-chief is a publication's primary editor, having final responsibility for the operations and policies. Additionally, the editor-in-chief is held accountable for delegating tasks to staff members as well as keeping up with the time it takes them to complete their task...

 include: Roscoe Pound

Roscoe Pound

Nathan Roscoe Pound was a distinguished American legal scholar and educator. He was Dean of Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936...

, long-time dean of Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

; Justice John Paul Stevens

John Paul Stevens

John Paul Stevens served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from December 19, 1975 until his retirement on June 29, 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the oldest member of the Court and the third-longest serving justice in the Court's history...

; Governor Daniel Walker

Daniel Walker

Daniel Walker was the 36th Governor of the U.S. state of Illinois from 1973 to 1977.-Early life and career:He was born in Washington, D.C. and raised near San Diego, California. He was the second Governor of Illinois to graduate from the United States Naval Academy. He served as a naval officer in...

; and Newton N. Minow

Newton N. Minow

Newton Norman Minow is an American attorney and former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. His speech referring to television as a "vast wasteland" is cited even as the speech has passed its 50th anniversary...

, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission

Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

. Other editorial officers have included Justice Arthur Goldberg

Arthur Goldberg

Arthur Joseph Goldberg was an American statesman and jurist who served as the U.S. Secretary of Labor, Supreme Court Justice and Ambassador to the United Nations.-Early life:...

 and Adlai Stevenson.

Selected notable contributors to the Law Review include Dean Leon Green, Sir William Holdsworth, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932...

, Albert M. Kales, Nathan William MacChesney, Charles T. McCormick

Charles T. McCormick

Charles Tilford McCormick was an American university professor.-Early life and education:McCormick was born in Dallas, Texas in 1889. He studied at the University of Texas at Austin, graduating in 1909...

, Sir Frederick Pollock, Dean Roscoe Pound

Roscoe Pound

Nathan Roscoe Pound was a distinguished American legal scholar and educator. He was Dean of Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936...

, Dean John Henry Wigmore

John Henry Wigmore

John Henry Wigmore was a U.S. jurist and expert in the law of evidence. After teaching law at Keio University in Tokyo , he was the dean of Northwestern Law School...

, Justice Felix Frankfurter

Felix Frankfurter

Felix Frankfurter was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.-Early life:Frankfurter was born into a Jewish family on November 15, 1882, in Vienna, Austria, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Europe. He was the third of six children of Leopold and Emma Frankfurter...

, Justice Tom Clark

Tom Clark

Tom Clark is a Canadian television journalist. He has been a substitute anchor for CTV National News, and host of Power Play, a political program on CTV News Channel...

, Justice William O. Douglas

William O. Douglas

William Orville Douglas was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. With a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, he is the longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court...

, Justice Abe Fortas

Abe Fortas

Abraham Fortas was a U.S. Supreme Court associate justice from 1965 to 1969. Originally from Tennessee, Fortas became a law professor at Yale, and subsequently advised the Securities and Exchange Commission. He then worked at the Interior Department under Franklin D...

, Chief Judge Harry T. Edwards

Harry T. Edwards

Harry Thomas Edwards is a United States federal judge.Born in New York, New York, Judge Edwards received a B.S. from Cornell University in 1962, where he was a member of the Quill and Dagger society. He received a J.D. from University of Michigan Law School in 1965 and practiced law in Chicago for...

, Erwin Griswold

Erwin Griswold

Erwin Nathaniel Griswold was an appellate attorney who argued many cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Griswold served as Solicitor General of the United States under Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. He also served as Dean of Harvard Law School for 21 years. Several times he...

, Archibald Cox

Archibald Cox

Archibald Cox, Jr., was an American lawyer and law professor who served as U.S. Solicitor General under President John F. Kennedy. He became known as the first special prosecutor for the Watergate scandal. During his career, he was a pioneering expert on labor law and also an authority on...

, Paul Freund, W. Willard Wirtz

W. Willard Wirtz

William Willard Wirtz was a former U.S. administrator, cabinet officer, attorney, and law professor. He served as the Secretary of Labor between 1962 and 1969 under the administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. At the time of his death, he was the last living member of...

, Albert Ehrenzweig, H.L.A. Hart, Gerald Gunther, Edward H. Levi

Edward H. Levi

Edward Hirsch Levi was an American academic leader, scholar, and statesman who served as United States Attorney General. He is regularly cited as the "model of a modern attorney general," the "greatest lawyer of his time," and considered, along with Yale's Whitney Griswold, the greatest of...

, Hubert Humphrey

Hubert Humphrey

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...

, Brunson MacChesney, Nathaniel Nathanson, Dean James A. Rahl, Dean (now professor) David Ruder, Martin Redish, Kenneth Culp Davis, Raoul Berger

Raoul Berger

Raoul Berger was an attorney and professor at The University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University School of Law. While at Harvard, he was the Charles Warren Senior Fellow in American Legal History....

, Bernard Schwartz, Ian Macneil

Ian MacNeil

Ian MacNeil may refer to:* Ian MacNeil , Conservative Party candidate in the 2004 Canadian federal election* Ian MacNeil , stage set designer* Ian MacNeil , Canadian ice hockey player...

, John C. Coffee

John C. Coffee

John C. "Jack" Coffee, Jr. is the Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and director of the Center on Corporate Governance at Columbia University Law School.-Education:...

, Gary Lawson, Mary Becker, Stephen Schulhofer, Nadine Strossen

Nadine Strossen

Nadine Strossen was president of the American Civil Liberties Union from February 1991 to October 2008. She was the first woman and the youngest person to ever lead the ACLU. A professor at New York Law School, Professor Strossen sits on the Council on Foreign Relations...

, Judge José A. Cabranes

José A. Cabranes

José Alberto Cabranes , is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Formerly a practicing lawyer, government official, and law teacher, he was the first Puerto Rican appointed to a federal judgeship in the continental United States .-Background:Cabranes was born in...

, Judge Richard Posner

Richard Posner

Richard Allen Posner is an American jurist, legal theorist, and economist who is currently a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School...

, and Cass Sunstein

Cass Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein is an American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics, who currently is the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration...

.

Beyond the Law Review’s traditional legal scholarship, it has published contributions from noted philosopher F.S.C. Northrop

F. S. C. Northrop

Filmer Stuart Cuckow Northrop was an American philosopher. After receiving a B.A. from Beloit College in 1915, and an MA from Yale University in 1919, he went on to Harvard University where he earned another MA in 1922 and a Ph.D...

, the Right Reverend James A. Pike, Erle Stanley Gardner

Erle Stanley Gardner

Erle Stanley Gardner was an American lawyer and author of detective stories, best known for the Perry Mason series, he also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J...

, and J. Edgar Hoover

J. Edgar Hoover

John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...

.

In addition to individual contributions, the Law Review has a history of special symposium issues on a broad range of topics. Recent symposium issues have included: Throwing Away the Key: Social and Legal Responses to Child Molesters (Summer 1997); Free Speech and Economic Power (Summer 1998); Empirical Legal Realism (Summer 2003); Constitutional Law and the Internet (Summer 2004); and the Centennial Symposium Issue (Fall 2005).