This month marks the anniversary of the very first issue of the Dickinson Law Review.  The Forum, as it was known then, was first published in January, 1897.

[The Forum] comes not to revolutionize the periodicals of collegiate circles, nor to dim the light of any journal which may be shining in the legal world.  The purpose of The Forum is both general and specific – general in the sense that through its medium well established principles of law will be adduced and treated in the reports of moot court cases, and specific in that primarily it will be devoted to the Dickinson School of Law.  From time to time also, there will be discussions of legal questions and contributions by well-known writers.  1 FORUM 1 (1897).

Although the early editors of The Forum did not intend to be revolutionaries with the publication of their journal, they nonetheless were.  Julia Radle, Class of 1899 and the first female graduate from the Dickinson School of Law, served as one of The Forum’s editors from 1898-1899.  It is believed that Ms. Radle may have been the first female in the United States to serve as a law review editor.  In addition, only four other law schools have law reviews that predate the publication of The Forum:  the University of Pennsylvania (1852), Harvard (1887), Yale (1891), and West Virginia (1894).  Laurel Terry, Foreword:  Why “Tradition, Innovation, and New Beginnings:  Celebrating the History of the Dickinson Law Review” Is an Appropriate Title for Volume 122(1), 122 Dick. L. Rev. 5, 6 (2017).

In 1908, The Forum became known as the Dickinson Law Review.  In 1997, the Dickinson School of Law began its merger with the Pennsylvania State University, and in 2003, the Dickinson Law Review became known as the Penn State Law Review.  In 2016, the two Penn State law school campuses split into two separately accredited law schools.  Thereafter, the law review at the Carlisle location again became known as the Dickinson Law Review, while University Park assumed publication of the Penn State Law Review.

Current volumes of the Dickinson Law Review can be found in our digital repository, Dickinson Law IDEAS.  Volumes of the Dickinson Law Review dating all the way back to the very first issue of The Forum can be found on HeinOnline.