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More Than Decisions: Reviews Of American Law Reports In The Pre-West Era, Richard A. Danner
More Than Decisions: Reviews Of American Law Reports In The Pre-West Era, Richard A. Danner
Faculty Scholarship
In the early nineteenth century, both general literary periodicals and the first American legal journals often featured reviews of new volumes of U.S. Supreme Court and state court opinions, suggesting their importance not only to lawyers seeking the latest cases, but to members of the public. The reviews contributed to public discourse through comments on issues raised in the cases and the quality of the reporting, and were valued as forums for commentary on the law and its role in American society, particularly during debates on codification and the future of the common law in the 1820s. James Kent saw …