Drexel Law Review Publishes Inaugural Issue
April 22, 2009 — With the inaugural issue of Drexel Law Review, the Earle Mack School of Law has created a dynamic new vehicle for legal scholarship.
"The founding of the Drexel Law Review marks a noteworthy moment in the institutional life of the Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University, already a vibrant center for scholarly inquiry and professional development in the field of law," the Hon. Anthony J. Scirica, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, wrote in the foreword. "Like the law school's lecture halls, faculty offices, and corridors, these pages will provide a fresh new forum for some of the intellectual pursuits that are most important to our profession-the exposition of the law and the give-and-take of academic dialogue."
This issue includes the Inaugural Article, "Reforming Knowledge? A Socio-Legal Critique of Legal Education Reforms in Japan," by Annelise Riles, Jack G. Clarke Professor of East Asian Legal Studies at Cornell Law School, and Takashi Uchida, senior advisor to the Ministry of Justice of Japan, which examines the consequences of education reforms of 2004.
The Hon. Louis H. Pollak, judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, offers a critique of numerical rankings in "Why Trying to Rank Law Schools Numerically is a Nonproductive Undertaking: An Article on the U.S. News & World Report 2009 List of 'The Top 100 Schools.'"
In "Teaching Transactional Lawyering," Karl S. Okamoto, a member of the Earle Mack School of Law faculty and director of Business and Entrepreneurship Law Concentration, discusses the practicum course he is teaching and the challenges of helping students master transactional work.
"Resolving Amici Curiae Motions in the Third Circuit and Beyond," by Carl Tobias, Williams Professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, examines a circuit split regarding standards for the allowance of amici curiae motions.
Drexel Law Review Editor-in-Chief Mary Mitchell offers a social history of one aspect of antebellum patent law and argues that prominent scientists influenced the Supreme Court in developing heightened inventiveness standards in "'Genius of Art! What Achievements are Thine?' The Social Shaping of Inventiveness Requirements in Antebellum Patent Law."
In "Sex Offender Residency Restrictions: How Common Sense Places Children at Risk," Earle Mack School of Law student Lindsay Wagner argues that strategies to change residency restrictions should focus on informing the public of their flaws, rather than on judicial action.
The issue features a rich variety of scholarship, Earle Mack School of Law Dean Roger Dennis said.
"We are very excited by the quality of our students' work in producing this first issue," Dennis said.
Editor-in-Chief Mary Mitchell said launching the publication was well worth the effort.
"The challenges of starting the law review have been significant," Mitchell said, "but working with so many dedicated classmates and scholars made the process tremendously rich and rewarding."
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