History

William Mitchell Legacy

In 1972, a student-faculty committee at William Mitchell College of Law recommended starting a law review. At the time, the idea was surprisingly controversial. The College was still a part-time night school, and law reviews, many believed, were “the province of the intellectual elite,” far beyond the capabilities of William Mitchell students. Even staunch supporters viewed the so-called “Law Review Project” as an experiment. At the time, the only school publication, other than the student newspaper, the William Mitchell Opinion, was the William Mitchell Advocate, a collection of the best legal writing papers that were generated in the legal writing course. No part-time evening law school at that time published a law review.

With the immense support of Professor Michael Steenson and Dean Heidenreich, the William Mitchell Law Review published its first volume in 1974.1 Volume 1, headed by Editor-in-Chief Marcy Wallace, was a single issue with six student comments and no lead articles—a calculated decision that allowed for easy dissolution of the experiment should it fail. Instead, the publication was a success. Lead articles were featured the following year in Volume 2, and one of the student comments in Volume 1 was cited by the Minnesota Supreme Court.2 The William Mitchell Law Review expanded to two issues in 1978 and then three in 1980, by which time William Mitchell College of Law offered daytime classes and full-time enrollment. By 1984, the Law Review was publishing four issues per volume. For a period in the mid-2000s, the Law Review published a special fifth issue, titled Journal of the National Security Forum. Beginning in 2014, the journal began publishing an online compendium, Sua Sponte, which highlighted student-written long papers. Professor Steenson, the creative force behind the Law Review, served as Faculty Advisor for the journal’s entire forty-one year history. He remains in this position following the combination of William Mitchell Law Review and Hamline Law Review.

In the end, the law review experiment did not fail but instead gave the law school legitimacy during its transformation from an exclusively evening law school to a nationally recognized institution with full-time, part-time, day, evening, weekend, and online programs.3 From 1974 to 2015, the William Mitchell Law Review published nearly 2000 articles; was cited in hundreds of federal and state judicial opinions; published the writings of prominent members of the federal and state judiciary, politicians, and countless professors and practitioners;4 and accumulated over 220,000 article downloads.5

Hamline Legacy

The Hamline Law Review was first published in 1978, just three years after the first class graduated from Hamline University School of Law. As founding editor-in-chief, Gwen Lerner hoped that this issue would be the beginning of a publication that spoke for itself in the legal community; she would not be disappointed.6 The Hamline Law Review became a forum for members of the bench, bar, and education communities to discuss topics that pertained and were of interest to the legal profession, publishing three issues per year.

Throughout its thirty-five-year history, the Hamline Law Review published numerous articles, documenting the many crucial challenges that our justice system faces.7 Volume 10 published a special project on the 200th Anniversary of the U.S. Constitution. Authors included members of the United States Congress, mayors, attorneys general, and professors. The article incorporated interviews of everyday Americans who did not have legal backgrounds, including bartenders and homeless persons.

From 1978 to 2015, the Hamline Law Review published over 700 articles and no fewer than 20 symposia. The Law Review focused on topics of great importance to society and social justice, such as racial bias in the judicial system, disability discrimination, the housing crisis of 2008, and healthcare reform. The Law Review also featured such luminaries as former President Jimmy Carter.8

Combination

Combining two law reviews is no simple task. In 2015, after the announced merger of Hamline University School of Law and William Mitchell College of Law, the respective boards of the Hamline Law Review and the William Mitchell Law Review set about tackling the momentous task of merging two law reviews into one—something that had never been done before. Overnight, the Board of Editors became unusually large at twenty-six individuals, who directed the work of sixty-four associates.9 Through numerous e-mails and phone calls, plus committee, editorial board, and associate meetings, the two law reviews, distilling from two distinct processes and legacies the rudiments, formed a new law journal, the Mitchell Hamline Law Review, with a combined history spanning seventy-six years.

After much consideration, the board decided to publish the first new law review volume as a combined journal under Volume 42. This decision aimed to recognize the generations of institutional knowledge behind both of the Law Review’s predecessors, as well as to be a sign of respect and admiration for the student editors and faculty at both schools whose work over decades past had been so significant to the legal scholarship of both institutions. The result of the hard work and planning that went into the combination was the Issue 1 of Volume 42 of the Mitchell Hamline Law Review, which arrived in crisp print in March 2016. The Mitchell Hamline Law Review continues the tradition of author solicitation, and the fabled Bluebook quiz, which was a part of the William Mitchell Law Review write-on competition created by Jon Schmidt and the Volume 29 board, lives on.

In the end, the Mitchell Hamline Law Review strives to maintain the legacy of its predecessor schools: a long-standing commitment to access to legal education, to service, to excellence, and, more recently, to providing an education that truly prepares students to be lawyers and leaders in the 21st century.

For more information, please visit …

Hamline, William Mitchell law schools to merge (MPR News)

Mitchell Hamline Law Review on Mitchell Hamline Open Access

Footnotes

  1. The significant work and dedication exhibited by the original William Mitchell Law Review staff cannot be understated. At times, the Law Review’s fate hung by a thread, and it would surely have snapped without the tireless efforts of these pioneering students. In addition to Editor-in-Chief Marcy S. Wallace, that staff was comprised of Managing Editor William E. Macklin, Research Editor Donald H. Gjerdingen, and Associates Stephen R. Bergerson, Parrel A. Caplan, J. Mark Catron, Douglas E. Klint, David W. Lee, James T. Martin, Steven P. Oman, Larry J. Peterson, Jerry O. Relph, Kay T. Silverman, Patrick R. Sweeney, Robert B. Varco, Dwight S. Wagenius, Michael J. Wahlig, and Robert D. Walker. The Marcy S. Wallace Excellence in Leadership award is presented at the annual Mitchell Hamline Law Review banquet. This award is given to a law review alumna or alumnus who has demonstrated exceptional service and leadership in the community and outstanding support of the law review and the school. ↩︎
  2. See Holman v. Gen. Ins. Co. of Am., 304 Minn. 312, 317 n.5, 231 N.W.2d 81, 84 n.5 (1975) (citing Comment, Civil Procedure: Seider with a Minnesota Flavor—A Federal Court Imports Quasi in Rem Jurisdiction Based on Garnishment of Liability Insurance Obligations [Rintala v. Shoemaker, 362 F. Supp. 1044 (D. Minn. 1973)], 1 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 161 (1974)). ↩︎
  3. See Michael K. Steenson, A Thirtieth Anniversary Tribute to the William Mitchell Law Review, 30 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 1465, 1468–69 (2004). ↩︎
  4. U.S. Supreme Court Justices Warren E. Burger, Harry Blackmun, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Byron R. White wrote for the Law Review. Additionally, many members of the Minnesota judiciary wrote articles for the Law Review, including Minnesota Supreme Court Justices Rosalie E. Wahl, Lorie Gildea, Paul A. Anderson, Eric Magnuson, Helen Meyer, and Esther M. Tomljanovich. Walter F. Mondale, Hubert H. Humphrey III, Jesse Ventura, and Amy Klobuchar authored articles in the Law Review as well. See Harry A. Blackmun, A Tribute to Warren E. Burger, 22 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 15 (1996); Sandra Day O’Connor, A Tribute to Warren E. Burger, 22 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 7 (1996); Byron R. White, A Tribute to Warren E. Burger, 22 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 19 (1996); Hon. Rosalie E. Wahl, The Hogg Years, 21 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 637 (1996); Lorie S. Gildea, Sifting the Dross: Expert Witness Testimony in Minnesota After the Daubert Trilogy, 26 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 93 (2000); Justice Paul H. Anderson, Foreword: Celebrating 100 Years of Juvenile Court in Minnesota, 32 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 873 (2006); Kay Nord Hunt & Eric J. Magnuson, Ethical Issues on Appeal, 19 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 659 (1993); Honorable Helen Meyer, Foreword, 31 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 403 (2004); Hon. Esther M. Tomljanovich, A Tribute to Rosalie E. Wahl, 21 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 7 (1995); Vice President Walter F. Mondale, Foreword, 29 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 737 (2003); The Honorable Jesse Ventura, Telecommunications in the 21st Century, 27 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 2099 (2001); Amy Klobuchar & Hilary Lindell Caligiuri, Protecting the Innocent/Convicting the Guilty: Hennepin County’s Pilot Project in Blind Sequential Eyewitness Identification, 32 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 1, 2 (2005). ↩︎
  5. See William Mitchell Law Review: Legacy Archives, Mitchell Hamline Sch. L., https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/wmlr (last visited March 8, 2017). ↩︎
  6. The Gwen M. Lerner Excellence in Leadership Award, named for the Editor-in-Chief of Volume 1 of the Hamline Law Review, is presented each year at the Mitchell Hamline Law Review banquet. The award is given to law review alumni, or sometimes other supporters of the Law Review, who have demonstrated exceptional service and leadership in the community and outstanding support of the law review and the school. ↩︎
  7. See Edwin J. Butterfoss, Introductory Remark, 26 Hamline L. Rev. 215, 216 (2003). See also, e.g., Rosalie E. Wahl, Equal Justice Under Law: Dream or Reality?, 79 Hamline L. Rev. 1 (1979); Civil Commitment in Minnesota, 4 Hamline L. Rev. 1 (1980) (including excerpts from the Final Report of the Minnesota Supreme Court Study Commission on the Mentally Disabled and the Courts); Seminar Concerning Lawyer Competency and Its Relationship to Law School Curricula, 4 Hamline L. Rev. 477 (1981); Symposium on Determinate Sentencing, 5 Hamline L. Rev. 161 (1982); Symposium on Indian Law, 8 Hamline L. Rev. 493 (1985); Special Project: Perspectives on the Constitution, 10 Hamline L. Rev. 73 (1987) (authors included President Ronald Reagan; The Honorable Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill; Governor Rudy Perpich; United States Senators Bob Dole, William Proxmire, Rudy Boschwitz, David Durenberger, Ernest F. Hollings, and Strom Thurmond; Congressmen Bruce Vento, Gerry Sikorski, and Tim Penny; Dr. Benjamin Hooks; Rev. Billy Graham; Phyllis Shaffly; Harold Stassen; and Gus Hall); The Minnesota Supreme Court and Minnesota State Bar Association Task Force on Alternative Dispute Resolution, 15 Hamline L. Rev. 65 (1991); The Minnesota Supreme Court Task Force on Racial Bias in the Judicial System, 16 Hamline L. Rev. 475 (1993). ↩︎
  8. Jimmy Carter, The Greatest Human Rights Crime: War, 13 Hamline L. Rev. 469 (1990). ↩︎
  9. See William Mitchell Board Of Editors, Legacy: William Mitchell Law Review, 42 Mitchell Hamline L. Rev. 1434 (2016). ↩︎