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100 Nw. U. L. Rev. 25 (2006)
A Personal History of the Law Review

handle is hein.journals/illlr100 and id is 43 raw text is: Copyright 2006 by Northwestern University School of Law Printed in U.S.A. Northwestern University Law Review Vol. 100, No. I A PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE LA WREVIEW John Paul Stevens* Art Seder and I were co-editors-in-chief of the Northwestern Univer- sity Law Review in 1947 when the journal was known by a different name: the Illinois Law Review. I am sure that most students who now contribute to each of the three law reviews published at the University of Illinois, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern are unaware that their journals share a common ancestor that published under the Illinois name for many years. That common project ended long before Art and I even knew what a law review was, but Northwestern retained the Illinois Law Review title for its own publication throughout our tenure and until 1952.' Most of the members of the class that entered Northwestern in the fall of 1945 were recently discharged veterans. Like other leading law schools, Northwestern offered a program that enabled us to complete three academic years in only two calendar years. Extracurricular work, such as moot court and writing for the criminal law journal or the Law Review, was not particu- larly appealing to students facing what already seemed to be a daunting challenge simply to survive. Nevertheless, our frightening but inspiring dean, Leon Green,2 convinced some of us that the extra effort would pay off in the long run. In retrospect, I have absolutely no doubt that Dean Green was right. I learned a number of valuable lessons from my experience on the Law Re- view, many of which guide me even now. For instance, I still remember Dean Green's persuasive explanation of why footnotes perform an espe- cially useful function in legal writing. They provide an opportunity to communicate facts or arguments that, while important to the reader, are su- perfluous to the main text. He rejected the purists' view that unless a statement is important enough to be included in the text, it should be omit- ted entirely. I remain persuaded by his wise counsel.' . Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1975-present). Northwestern University School of Law, Class of 1947. 1 In 1933, the University of Chicago began publishing its own law review. Although the University of Illinois also stopped editing the Illinois Law Review in 1933, that school did not begin publishing a separate journal until 1949. 2 In a practice I hope has long been abandoned, Dean Green required us to stand when responding to withering interrogation in his torts class. 3 Indeed, if others had adopted the purists' viewpoint, many developments in the law might never have occurred. See, e.g., United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 152 n.4 (1938).