Volume 5: Issue 1
Reid Alan Cox Reviews "Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, and Seminar Papers" By Eugene Volokh
In the forward to Professor Eugene Volokh’s new book, Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, and Seminar Papers, Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit observes that, while published legal articles can “be quite useful and influential in the development of the law,” most law review pieces “are read by no one beyond the [author’s] immediate family and cause hardly an eddy among the currents of the law.” This reality prompts Judge Kozinski to rhetorically ask: “Why do so many published [academic legal articles] fail in their essential purpose?” The answer is obvious to Judge Kozinski — and to the many law students and attorneys who share in the experience of publishing a law review piece only to be forever archived on library shelves and the Westlaw and Lexis- Nexis electronic databases. “Most students [and lawyers]
have no clue what to write about, or how to go about writing it,” Judge Kozinski explains. But this should be true no more, thanks to Professor Volokh’s new book, which lifts the veil on how to successfully navigate the process of framing, writing, and publishing law review notes, comments, and articles.