Law Review: The First Fifty Years of Hous. L. Rev. (2014)

Abstract

Decade 1 (titled “Driven”) describes the founding of Houston Law Review (“HLR”), and in particular how the founding Board of Editors struggled to lift off the start-up journal from exceedingly modest beginnings.

Decade 2 (“Carry on Boldly”) follows the succeeding generation of editors as they attempted, despite financial challenges, to consolidate and build on the accomplishments of the first decade, particularly through the creation of themed issues.

Decade 3 (“Centered”) explores the impact of growing specialization in the practice of law upon the University of Houston Law Center through the creation of institutes, centers and programs that, in turn, provided quality external content to HLR.

Decade 4 (“The Great Leap Forward”) encapsulates the critical decade in the Review’s history, when the journal thoroughly reorganized its editorial procedures, dramatically enhanced its content through its association with Law Center institutes for Health Law & Policy and Intellectual Property & Information Law, created prestigious lecture series and symposia, and survived a devastating tropical story that destroyed much of the Law Center, including HLR’s offices.

Decade 5 (“Enduringly Great”) shows how, in its fifth decade, Houston Law Review fulfilled its founders’ dream that it should one day become, as predicted in the first pages of Volume 1, Issue 1, a front-rank student-edited legal journal, where what would once have seemed the exceptional became the norm at HLR.

Keywords: law review, law journal, legal publication, on-time publication, institutional history, legal specialization, perfect aristocracy, meritocracy, legal specialization, law school centers, law school institutes, legal symposia, law school symposia, natural disaster