After decades of producing separate law journals, the Rutgers Schools of Law at Camden and Newark are introducing the Rutgers University Law Review, an entity that represents the merger of each school’s flagship journal.
Set to publish later this winter, the Rutgers University Law Review will go to all subscribers of the preexisting publications, Camden’s Rutgers Law Journal and Newark’s Rutgers Law Review, a list that includes some 300 law libraries, colleges, federal judges, state courts, and scholars and students of law.
The new merged journal debuts as the Rutgers Schools of Law at Camden and Newark move toward integrating into a single law school with two distinct locations.
“This first issue represents not only significant effort and coordination on the part of our students, but the beginning of a new tradition that widens our scope and strengthens our scholarship,” says Rutgers Law–Camden Acting Dean John Oberdiek.
To navigate the transitional period for the new entity, during 2014–15, the Rutgers University Law Review will produce six issues, with Camden producing three and Newark producing three. While this first issue is being produced by Camden students, the new Rutgers University Law Review will adopt the volume numbering of the former Newark journal and begin with volume 67.
When the journal is fully merged in 2015-16, the Rutgers University Law Review will shift to a five-issue publication format. A Camden tradition that will be preserved is the annual issue dedicated to state constitutional law, now entering its 26th publication.
According to Robert “RJ” Norcia, editor-in-chief at Camden, the merging of the journals has been a precursor to the law school-wide merger.
“It has been eye-opening to see some of the challenges that needed to be addressed as well as the opportunities for more articles, more citations, and a need for increased staff,” he says.
Run almost entirely by students, the law journals are comprised of ambitious second and third-year law students. Currently Camden has 39 students on its staff and Newark has 48. The need for more students to take on journal positions is expected to increase with the demand of scholarship to be published in the combined journal.
Norcia says past issues of the Rutgers Law Journal featured an average of about 250 pages. Each new issue of the merged Rutgers University Law Review is expected to surpass 500 pages, when both Camden and Newark students are involved.
“With double the amount of staff, we can work on a lot more at once,” adds Norcia. Faculty advisors Robert Williams and Camille Andrews in Camden will also continue on in their long-established roles.
This first Camden-published issue is estimated to be some 350 pages and includes notes by recent grad Kevin Miller ’14 on gerrymandering, and current law student Brian McGinnis on the legal pitfalls of LGBT conversion therapy, as well as an article by Distinguished Professor of Law Jay Feinman titled “Liability of Lawyers and Accountants to Non-Clients: Negligence and Negligent Misrepresentation.”
The issue also includes an international law symposium, “Global Challenges, Global Law,” deriving from a conference held at Swansea University in Wales in June 2013. Former Editor-in-Chief Alexandra Jacobs ’14, now a federal law clerk in the District of New Jersey, Camden vicinage, attended the symposium to hear the presentations now published in the journal.
“I was extremely fortunate that Swansea University invited me to attend their international law symposium,” says the Rutgers Law–Camden alumna. “The panel featured distinguished guests who lectured on cutting edge legal topics from cybersecurity to Bitcoin. It was wonderful to be in a room with legal scholars who will shape the international law conversation.” Among the symposium articles is “Cosmopolitanism and Global Legal Regimes” by Dennis Patterson, a Board of Governors Professor of law at Rutgers, who also serves as a professor of jurisprudence and international trade law at Swansea’s School of Law.
Merging each law school’s main journal required careful consideration of every last detail, down to the new journal’s cover design. “Newark’s was white and ours was red. We made them blend as best as we could,” Norica says. “It’s a joining together of both of our pasts for a new future together.” Based on the first issue, that future is bright.