Goodbye to Law Reviews

Abstract

T are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content. That, I think, about covers the ground. And though it is in the law reviews that the most highly regarded legal literature—and I by no means except those fancy rationalizations of legal action called judicial opinions—is regularly embalmed, it is in the law reviews that a pennyworth of content is most frequently concealed beneath a pound of so-called style. The average law review writer is peculiarly able to say nothing with an air of great importance. When I used to read law reviews, I used constantly to be reminded of an elephant trying to swat a fly. Now the antediluvian or mock-heroic style in which most law review material is written has, as I am well aware, been panned before. That panning has had no effect, just as this panning will have no effect. Remember that it is by request that I am bleating my private bleat about legal literature. To go into the question of style, it seems to be a cardinal principle of law review writing and editing that nothing may be said forcefully and nothing may be said amusingly. This, I take it, is in the interest of something called dignity. It does not matter that most people—and even lawyers come into this category—read either to be convinced or to be entertained. It does not matter that even in the comparatively rare instances when people read to be informed, they like a dash of pepper or a dash of salt along with their information. They won’t get any seasoning if the law reviews can help it. The law reviews would rather be dignified and ignored. Suppose a law review writer wants to criticize a court decision. Does he say “Justice Fussbudget, in a long-winded and vacuous opinion, managed to twist his logic and mangle his history so as to reach a result which is not only reactionary but ridiculous”? He may think exactly that but he does not say it. He does not even say “It was a thoroughly stupid decision.” What he says is—“It would seem that a contrary conclusion might perhaps have been better justified.” “It would seem—,” the matriarch of mollycoddle phrases, still revered by the law reviews in the dull name of dignity.