The Michigan State Law Review is a law review published by students at Michigan State University College of Law. It is the flagship journal of the school and it publishes five issues per year. According to the Washington & Lee Law Journal Ranking, Michigan State Law Review was the 48th highest-ranked flagship legal journal in 2022,[1] a dramatic increase from its ranking of 332rd in 2003.[2] The journal hosts an annual academic conference of global legal experts with past events covering issues such as autonomous vehicles, quantitative legal analysis, civil rights, and intellectual property.[3] Professor David Blankfein-Tabachnick has served as Faculty Advisor of the journal since his appointment in 2016.[4] In 2018, the journal began publishing an annual "Visionary Article Series," which features the work of one prominent legal scholar per year.[5]
Michigan State Law Review has published the works of numerous legal scholars, such as Robert Post, a legal scholar and former dean of Yale Law School,[6]Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School and renowned intellectual property scholar,[7]Scott L. Kafker, a justice on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,[8] and Nathalie Martin, professor of consumer and bankruptcy law at University of New Mexico School of Law.[9] The journal has also published the scholarship of Dennis Archer, a former Michigan Supreme Court justice and an alumnus of the school.[10][11]
History
Prior to the founding of the Michigan State Law Review, the school published a periodical known as The Brief Case. Although this was met with approval, potential authors who were unaffiliated with the school requested to be published. In response, a law review was established. The Michigan State Law Review, then known as the Detroit Law Review, released its first publication in June 1931. At the time, the school was known as the Detroit College of Law. After seven years, the Detroit Law Review ceased publication in 1938, but was brought back for three issues during the 1947–48 academic year. Following another hiatus, the journal was revived in 1975.[12]
In conjunction with the school's integration into Michigan State University, the journal went through a series of name changes: Detroit College of Law Review (1975-1995), Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University Law Review (1995-1999), The Law Review of Michigan State University, Detroit College of Law (1999-2003), Michigan State DCL Law Review (2003-2003), and Michigan State Law Review (2003–present).[12]
Publications
The Michigan State Law Review publishes five issues per year, one of which is a symposium that focuses on a particular legal topic.[13] Additionally, the journal publishes an annual "Visionary Article Series" article.[5]
Symposia
Each year, one of the Michigan State Law Review's issues is a symposium, a legal academic conference that focuses on a particular area of law.[3] In the 2018–2019 academic year, the Michigan State Law Review transitioned to a book symposium format, where authors visit the College of Law and workshop their pieces for the symposium in front of journal members and law school faculty.[14] In recent years, the annual symposia topics have been as follows:
2014 (Fall): Public Domain(s): Law, Generating Knowledge, and Furthering Innovation in the Information Economy
2015 (Spring): Civil rights and persuasive arguments in issues such as same-sex rights, abortion law, racial conflicts, voting rights, and animal rights
2015 (Fall): Quantitative analysis in law
2016 (Spring): Autonomous vehicle technology and the law
2017 (Spring): The emerging legal analytics industry and empirical legal studies
2018 (Spring): Truth and Reconciliation in Post-Ferguson America
2018-2019: The intersection of private values and public law
2019-2020: The intersection of law, language, and technology[3]
2020-2021: Property Ownership and Entitlement: Gender, Religion, & Culture
2021-2022: The Evolving Realm of Soft IP: Copyrights, Trademarks, Trade Secrets, and Publicity Rights
Visionary Article Series
In 2018, Michigan State Law Review began publishing a "Visionary Article Series" that aims to "honor a single legal scholar who has had a profound impact on a field of law by publishing a work of his or hers with a special designation."[5] In the inaugural year, the journal published an article on administrative regulation by Richard Revesz, director of the American Law Institute and professor and former dean at the New York University School of Law. In 2019, the series continued with an article by Yale Law School professor and former dean Robert Post that analyzed the chief justiceship of William Howard Taft. In 2020, the journal published an article by the Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale Law School, professor Daniel Markovits. Currently, Michigan State Law Review is in the process of publishing the 2021 Visionary Scholar Article by Eduardo Peñalver, professor and dean of Cornell Law School, which will precede a planned 2022 article by Akhil Amar, professor of law at Yale Law School.[5]
Notable Authors Published
Dennis Archer (pictured) published multiple articles in the journal when it was known as the Detroit College of Law Review.[10][11]
Michigan State Law Review has published the works of many prominent legal scholars, including:
Akhil Amar, professor at Yale Law School who the Supreme Court of the United States has cited to on 45 occasions[15]
Dennis Archer, former Michigan Supreme Court justice and former mayor of Detroit, Michigan[10][11]
Clayton Gillette, professor at NYU School of Law[21]
Scott L. Kafker, Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts[22]
Edmund Kitch, professor at the University of Virginia School of Law[23]
Lisa Larrimore Ouellette, associate professor at Stanford Law School[24]
Mark Lemley, professor of law at Stanford Law School and the Director of the Stanford Law School Program in Law, Science & Technology, as well as a founding partner of the law firm of Durie Tangri LLP[7]
Michael A. Livermore, professor at University of Virginia School of Law[17]
Julia Mahoney, professor at the University of Virginia School of Law[25]
Nathalie Martin, legal researcher and professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law[26]
^Chen, James (2016). "Legal Quanta: A Mathematical Romance of Many Dimensions". Michigan State Law Review (2): 313–324.
^Denno, Deborah (2011). "Courts' Increasing Consideration of Behavioral Genetics Evidence in Criminal Cases: Results of a Longitudinal Study". Michigan State Law Review: 967–1047.
^ abDrescher, Seymour; Finkelman, Paul (2007). "The Eternal Problem of Slavery in International Law: Killing the Vampire of Human Culture". Michigan State Law Review (4): 755–804.
^Kafker, Scott (2012). "The Eye of a Constitutional Storm: Pre-Election Review by the State Judiciary of Initiative Amendments to State Constitutions". Michigan State Law Review (4): 1279–1330.
^"Edmund W. Kitch". University of Virginia School of Law. July 22, 2016. Retrieved September 19, 2020.
^"Julia D. Mahoney". University of Virginia School of Law. July 22, 2016. Retrieved September 19, 2020.
^Martin, Nathalie (2015). "Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due: What We Can Learn from the Banking and Credit Habits of Undocumented Immigrants". Michigan State Law Review (3): 989–1042.
^McClain, Linda (2013). "Federal Family Policy and Family Values From Clinton to Obama, 1992-2012 and Beyond". Michigan State Law Review (5): 1621–1718.
^Partnoy, Frank (2009). "The Match King, Chapter 9: The Author's Cut". Michigan State Law Review (4): 1207–1238.
^Pierce, Richard J. (2009). "What Factors Can an Agency Consider in Making a Decision". Michigan State Law Review (1): 67–88.
^Revesz, Richard (2018). "Congress and the Executive: Challenging the Anti-Regulatory Narrative". Michigan State Law Review (Visionary Article Series): 795–819.
^"Duane Rudolph". Peking University – School of Transnational Law. Retrieved September 19, 2020.
^Smith, Loren A. (1986). "The End of the Constitution". Detroit College of Law Review (4): 1147.
^Yanisky-Ravid, Shlomit (2017). "Generating Rembrandt: Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, and Accountability in the 3A Era: The Human-like Authors Are Already Here: A New Model". Michigan State Law Review (4): 659–726.
