The ''Yale Law Journal'' (YLJ), known also as the ''Yale Law Review'', is a student-run
law review
A law review or law journal is a scholarly journal or publication that focuses on legal issues. A law review is a type of legal periodical. Law reviews are a source of research, imbedded with analyzed and referenced legal topics; they also p ...
affiliated with the
Yale Law School
Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & World ...
. Published continuously since 1891, it is the most widely known of the eight law reviews published by students at Yale Law School. The journal is one of the most cited legal publications in the United States (with an impact factor of 5.000) and usually generates the highest number of citations per published article.
Law journals' ranking
Washington & Lee Law School.
The journal, which is published eight times per year, contains articles, essays, features, and book reviews by professional legal scholars as well as student-written notes and comments. It is edited entirely by students. The journal has an online companion, the ''Yale Law Journal Forum'', which features shorter pieces and responses from scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.
The ''Yale Law Journal'', in conjunction with the ''Harvard Law Review
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 ...
'', the '' Columbia Law Review'', and the '' University of Pennsylvania Law Review'', publishes the '' Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation'', the most widely followed authority for legal citation
Legal citation is the practice of crediting and referring to authoritative documents and sources. The most common sources of authority cited are court decisions (cases), statutes, regulations, government documents, treaties, and scholarly writin ...
formats in the United States.
Notable alumni
Alumni of the ''Yale Law Journal'' have served at all levels of the federal judiciary. Alumni include Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
justice
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
s (Samuel Alito
Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. ( ; born April 1, 1950) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on October 31, 2005, and has serve ...
, Abe Fortas, Brett Kavanaugh
Brett Michael Kavanaugh ( ; born February 12, 1965) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on July 9, 2018, and has served since O ...
, Sonia Sotomayor, Potter Stewart
Potter Stewart (January 23, 1915 – December 7, 1985) was an American lawyer and judge who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1958 to 1981. During his tenure, he made major contributions to, among other areas ...
) and numerous judges on the United States courts of appeals
The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal judiciary. The courts of appeals are divided into 11 numbered circuits that cover geographic areas of the United States and hear appeals f ...
( Duane Benton, Stephanos Bibas, Guido Calabresi, Steven Colloton, Morton Ira Greenberg, Stephen A. Higginson, Andrew D. Hurwitz
Andrew David Hurwitz (born October 1, 1947) is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He served as a justice of the Arizona Supreme Court from 2003 to 2012.
Education and clerkships
Hurw ...
, Robert Katzmann, Scott Matheson, William J. Nardini
William Joseph Nardini (born 1969) is an American lawyer who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Early life and career
Nardini earned his Bachelor of Arts, ''summa cum laude' ...
, Michael H. Park, Jill A. Pryor
Jill Anne Pryor (born March 24, 1963) is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Pryor was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Education
Pryor received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1985 from ...
, Richard G. Taranto, Patricia Wald, Cory T. Wilson).
Alumni have also served as United States Attorneys General
United may refer to:
Places
* United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community
* United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film
* ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two f ...
( Nicholas Katzenbach, Peter Keisler
Peter Douglas Keisler (born October 13, 1960) is an American lawyer whose 2006 nomination by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit became embroiled in partisan controversy. He is a part ...
) and United States Solicitors General (Walter E. Dellinger III
Walter Estes Dellinger III (May 15, 1941 – February 16, 2022) was an American attorney and legal scholar who served as the Douglas B. Maggs Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law. He also led the appellate practice at O'Melveny & My ...
, Neal Katyal
Neal Kumar Katyal (born March 12, 1970) is an American lawyer and academic. He is a partner at Hogan Lovells and the Paul and Patricia Saunders Professor of National Security Law at Georgetown University Law Center. During the Obama administrati ...
, Seth P. Waxman). In addition, numerous editors have gone on to serve as high-ranking public officials (Senator Arlen Specter, Senator Michael Bennet
Michael Farrand Bennet (born November 28, 1964) is an American attorney, businessman, and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Colorado, a seat he has held since 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, he was appointed ...
, Senator Richard Blumenthal, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray
Christopher Asher Wray (born December 17, 1966) is an American attorney who is the eighth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, serving since 2017. From 2003 to 2005, Wray served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Crimin ...
, White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler
Lloyd Norton Cutler (November 10, 1917 – May 8, 2005) was an American attorney who served as White House Counsel during the Democratic administrations of Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
Early life and education
Cutler was bo ...
, National Security Advisor John R. Bolton).
Former editors also include prominent law professors (Matthew Adler
Matthew D. Adler (born 1962) is the Richard A. Horvitz Professor of Law and Professor of Economics, Philosophy and Public Policy at Duke Law School, and is the founding director of the Duke Center for Law, Economics and Public Policy. Earlier in ...
, Akhil Amar
Akhil Reed Amar (born September 6, 1958) is an American legal scholar known for his expertise in constitutional law and criminal procedure. He holds the position of Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, and is an ad ...
, Ian Ayres, Barbara A. Babcock
Barbara Allen Babcock (July 6, 1938 – April 18, 2020) was the Judge John Crown Professor of Law, Emerita, at Stanford Law School. She was an expert in criminal and civil procedure and was a member of the Stanford Law School faculty from 1972 ...
, Philip Bobbitt
Philip Chase Bobbitt, (born July 22, 1948) is an American author, academic, and lawyer. He is best known for work on U.S. constitutional law and theory, and on the relationship between law, strategy and history in creating and sustaining the St ...
, , Alan Dershowitz, John Hart Ely, Noah Feldman, Claire Finkelstein, Joseph Goldstein, Dawn Johnsen, Randall Kennedy, Karl Llewellyn, Jonathan R. Macey, Charles A. Reich, Reva Siegel, John Yoo
John Choon Yoo (; born July 10, 1967) is a Korean-born American legal scholar and former government official who serves as the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Yoo became known for his legal opinions ...
, and Kenji Yoshino), as well as the deans of Yale Law School
Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & World ...
( Robert Post and Louis H. Pollak, who was also dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School
The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (also known as Penn Law or Penn Carey Law) is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is among the most selective and oldes ...
), Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.
Each c ...
( Martha Minow), Columbia Law School ( David Schizer), Brooklyn Law School
Brooklyn Law School (BLS) is a private law school in New York City. Founded in 1901, it has approximately 1,100 students. Brooklyn Law School's faculty includes 60 full-time faculty, 15 emeriti faculty, and a number of adjunct faculty.
Brooklyn ...
( Joan Wexler), Northwestern University School of Law
Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law is the law school of Northwestern University, a private research university. It is located on the university's Chicago campus. Northwestern Law has been ranked among the top 14, or "T14" law scho ...
( David E. Van Zandt, now the president of The New School
The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
), Bates College ( Clayton Spencer), Michigan Law School (Evan Caminker
Evan H. Caminker (born June 26, 1961, Los Angeles, California) is a Dean Emeritus of the University of Michigan Law School. As Dean, he succeeded Jeffrey S. Lehman, who resigned to become president of Cornell University. Caminker was appointed ...
), New York University School of Law
New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is the law school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. Established in 1835, it is the oldest law school in New York City and the oldest surviving law school in ...
(Richard Revesz
Richard L. Revesz (born May 9, 1958) is an American lawyer and academic. He is the director of the American Law Institute and the Lawrence King Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law. He served as the Dean of the New York Univers ...
), Georgetown Law Center
The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...
(T. Alexander Aleinikoff Thomas Alexander Aleinikoff (born 1952) is Director of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School in New York City. He was a law professor and dean at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. He served, from 2010 t ...
), Emory University School of Law
Emory University School of Law is the law school of Emory University and is part of the University's main campus in Druid Hills, Atlanta, Georgia. It was founded in 1916 and was the first law school in Georgia to be granted membership in the Am ...
(Robert A. Schapiro
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...
), Washington and Lee University School of Law (Nora Demleitner
Nora V. Demleitner (born 1966) is the President of St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe), St. Johns College - Annapolis (2022–present). Prior to this she served as the Dean of Washington and Lee University School of Law from 2012-2015 and Dea ...
), and Stanford Law School ( Bayless Manning).
Admissions
The journal holds a two-part admissions competition each spring, consisting of a "source and citation exam" followed by a traditional writing competition, as well as a recently added diversity statement that is worth 20% of the admissions scoring. Students may also join the staff if they publish a note in the ''Journal''.
Notable articles
Some of the journal's most cited articles include:
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*
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*
*
*
*
* Fiss, Owen (1984)
"Against Settlement"
''Yale Law Journal''. 93 (6): 1073-1090. .
Both Samuel Alito
Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. ( ; born April 1, 1950) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on October 31, 2005, and has serve ...
and Sonia Sotomayor wrote student notes for the ''Yale Law Journal'', which were scrutinized during their nomination processes to the Supreme Court of the United States.
*
*
References
Further reading
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External links
*
''The Pocket Part''
{{Authority control
American law journals
General law journals
Yale Law School
Publications established in 1891
Law journals edited by students
1891 establishments in Connecticut
8 times per year journals