The Louisiana Law Review: A History

          The first issue of the Louisiana Law Review went into print in November of 1938.  Since then the Review has served as Louisiana's flagship legal journal and has become a vibrant forum for scholarship in comparative and civil law topics.  The article below is taken from the first issue of the Law Review.  The piece was meant to commemorate the founding of the Law Review and to foreshadow the lasting impact that the Louisiana Law Review would have on state jurisprudence and legislation and on the legal landscape of Louisiana for years to come.

THE LAW REVIEW AND THE LAW SCHOOL
By:  Paul M. Hebert, Dean

1 La. L. Rev. 157 (1938)

          With this issue the Louisiana Law Review makes its first appearance before the legal profession of the State.  Under the circumstances propriety requires some indication of its aims and objectives and something should be said concerning the motives prompting establishment of the new Review.  Also, this opportunity cannot be allowed to pass without making appropriate acknowledgement to the alumni of the Law School and to the large number of Louisiana lawyers who have responded with enthusiasm to the preliminary announcement, tendering their support in the form of subscriptions and letters of approval.  In the arduous task of establishing a new legal periodical, this has been an encouragement of invaluable assistance and an incentive to greater effort.

          The Faculty of the Law School, in establishing the Louisiana Law Review, is following a policy similar to that  adopted by many leading American law schools.  It is sought to present a legal periodical that will not only be an organ of expression of the L.S.U. Law School, but which will also render a distinct educational and professional service.  From the educational viewpoint it may be observed that since the establishment of the first law school review by Harvard in 1887, more than fifty similar legal periodicals have been introduced, with the result that, with only an occasional discordant note, it has been generally recognized that the law review is an indispensable part of the American system of legal education.  The training in research and legal writing under faculty supervision which is made possible for the students through the medium of the law review serves inevitably as a stimulus to a higher standard of scholarship—experience in original and independent work can hardly be provided as effectively through any other means.

          Additionally, from the professional viewpoint, there exists opportunity for the rendition of a great service.  In  Louisiana, because of our civil law system, we have a particularly fertile field for law review work.  The practical value to the profession of doctrinal materials in the civil law has already been ably demonstrated by the pioneering work of the Tulane Law Review, which may properly be credited in a large measure with the current rebirth of interest in the civil law of Louisiana, and while its contributions to the legal literature of Louisiana have been great, the subject matter to be covered is vast and extensive.  Moreover, it is perhaps not too much to say that with common law influences pressing on us from every side, the very existence of the juridical method of the civil law in Louisiana is seriously threatened and its survival would appear to depend upon the ability of the law schools and the legal profession to develop and make available the essential doctrinal materials dealing with the modern civil law.  With this end in view, it will be the policy of the Louisiana Law Review to place special emphasis on matters pertaining to civil and comparative law.  Following the style of most American law school reviews, sections will be devoted to leading articles, comments, case notes, book reviews and such additional special features or sections as may be deemed advisable from time to time.

          As a special accommodation for members of the bar, through the cooperation of the Frank Shepard Company, arrangements have been made for the inclusion in Shepard's Louisiana Citations of references to statutes and cases discussed in the Louisiana Law Review.

          The opening of its thirty-third session finds the Law School comfortably and adequately housed in the spacious new quarters of Leche Hall.  In the increased efficiency that it promotes the building bids fair to more than justify the generous investment made by the State for the purposes of legal education.  The new law building, first occupied in late December of last year, was formally dedicated on April 6th, 7th, and 8th, 1938, with appropriate ceremonies.  Among the noted figures in the legal profession and in legal education who participated in the various programs were:  Former Dean Roscoe Pound of the Harvard Law School; Dean Leon Green of Northwestern University Law School; Dean H. Claude Horack of Duke University Law School; Dean Charles E. Clark of the Yale Law School; Professor Harold Shepherd of the University of Cincinnati College of Law; Professor Edson R. Sunderland of the University of Michigan Law School; Honorable E. Fabre Surveyer, Judge of the Superior Court of the Providence of Quebec; Honorable Joseph C. Hutchenson, Judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit; Honorable Gaston L. Porterie, Attorney General of Louisiana; Honorable John B. Fournet, Justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana; Honorable Charles A. O'Neill, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana; Honorable J. Hugo Doré, Judge of the Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit; Dean Thomas C. Kimbrough of the University of Mississippi Law School; Dean Paul W. Brosman of the Tulane University College of Law; Honorable John H. Tucker, Jr., Shreveport bar; Honorable Rufus E. Foster, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, and others.

          The entire dedication program was a significant success, and the symposia on Trends in Legal Education, Modern Trends in Procedural Reform, and The Position of the Civil Law in America were of a character to reflect credit on the University and the Law School.

          New appointments effective with the 1938-39 session include:
          Joseph Dainow, formerly of the Law Faculty of Loyola University (New Orleans), has been appointed Assistant Professor of Law and Faculty Editor of the Louisiana Law Review.  Mr. Dainow holds the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Civil Law from McGill University.  He also received the degree of Docteur en Droit from the University of Dijon, and was awarded the degree of S.J.D. from the Law School of Northwestern University.

          Dale E. Bennett returns to the Law School after two years spent as a member of the Faculty of the University of Texas School of Law.  Mr. Bennett is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts.  His law training was at Ohio State University, where he earned the J.D. degree and at the Yale Law School where he held a Sterling Fellowship prior to receiving the J.S.D. degree in 1934.  Younger graduates of the Law School will remember Mr. Bennett as a member of the Faculty from 1933 to 1936.

          Miss Alice Daspit, A.B., A.M., B.S.L.S., LL.B., has been appointed Law Librarian and Lecturer on Legal Bibliography.

          Three new or prospective books of particular interest by members of the Faculty are:  Professor Hall's Readings in Jurisprudence which was released this fall by Bobbs-Merill Publishing Company; Professor Harriet S. Daggett's Handbook of Mineral Rights which is nearing completion and will be published in the very near future; and Professor Henry G. McMahon's Cases and Materials on Louisiana Practice, the manuscript of which has been completed for publication by the West Publishing Company shortly after the first of the year.

          Two factors have contributed to a slight decline in the student enrollment for the current session.  The first is a new entrance requirement exacting a higher scholastic average in pre-legal work as a condition for admission to the Law School.  Numerous applicants were turned away this fall for failure to comply with the increased admission standards.  A second factor is the continuance of a general trend throughout the country noted last year of decreasing enrollments in professional schools.  However, with a total of 135 students enrolled in the Law School—51 in the first year; 45 in the second year; 37 in the third year and two graduate students—the Faculty is in a strong position to carry forward its constructive work, particularly in view of the fact that an exceptionally high percentage of students are college graduates and in a better position to profit by legal training.

          Since the thirty-third session concurs with the first year of the establishment of the Louisiana Law Review, one of the busiest and most fruitful years in the history of the Law School is anticipated.