The American Journal of Legal History is a quarterly peer-reviewed law journal. It was established in 1957 and has been published by Oxford University Press since 2016.Oxford University Press announces the relaunch of American Journal of Legal History http://oxfordjournals.org/en/press/announcements-from-oup/american-journal-of-legal-history.html See also Alfred L. Brophy, How Legal History Shapes the Present, OUP Blog https://blog.oup.com/2016/04/how-legal-history-shapes-the-present/ History The journal was established by Temple University law library director Erwin C. Surrency.James W. Hilty, Temple University: 125 Years of Service to Philadelphia, the Nation, and the World 240 (2010) The first issue appeared in February 1957.Joseph C. Kiger, Research Institutions and Learned Societies 111 (1982) From its inception until 1982, the journal was the official publication of the American Society for Legal History.Michael H. Hoeflich and Steve Sheppard, Disciplinary Evolution and Scholarly Expansion: Legal History in the United States, American Journal of Comparative Law 54:23, 23-24 (2006 Supplement)
Purpose According to Surrency, the journal was created to provide legal historians with a forum for their work and as a means of advancing the "law through a study of its history."Julius J. Marke, Legal Bibliography and History, Annual Survey of American Law 1957:615, 619 (1958)
The journal was the first English-language periodical devoted solely to legal history.Joel Fishman et al., Bibliography of Legal History Articles Appearing in Law Library Journal, Volumes 1-94 (1908-2002), Law Library Journal 95:217, 221 (2003). Since 2010, it has used the tag line, "Combining the professional approach of the historian and the technical knowledge of the lawyer." Lawrence J. Reilly, Editor's Note, American Journal of Legal History 51:iii, iii-iv (2011) The journal publishes articles, essays, and book reviews on all aspects of legal history.Society Seeks Publication Outlets, American Bar Association Journal 60:104, 104 (1974) Although a popular misconception is that the journal's coverage is limited to "American legal history," the editors make it a point to regularly publish works on non-American legal history.Ronald H. Fritze, Brian E. Coutts, and Louis Andrew Vyhnanek, Reference Sources in History: An Introductory Guide 65 (2004) The "American" part of the title denotes the journal's original location—in the United States—not the subject matter it publishes.
Editors The journal, which was published from 1957 through 2015 by the Temple University Beasley School of Law, had four editors-in-chief during that time, all of whom were with Temple University's law school: Erwin Surrency (1957–1981), Diane C. Maleson (1982–2002), Lawrence J. Reilly (2008–2014), and Harwell Wells (2015).Alfred L. Brophy and Stefan Vogenauer, Introducing the Future of Legal History: On Relaunching the American Journal of Legal History, American Journal of Legal History 56:1, 4 (2016) From 2016 to 2021 the editors were Stefan Vogenauer and Alfred Brophy, who relaunched the journal as an Oxford University Press imprint. Since 2021 the editors are Joshua Getzler (Faculty of Law, University of Oxford) and Yvonne Pitts (Purdue University).
Influence Federal and state judges have cited the journal in 125 published opinions.Robert M. Jarvis, A Brief History of the American Journal of Legal History, American Journal of Legal History 51:1, 10 (2011) Scholars have cited the journal in more than 3,000 articles and more than 15,000 books.Robert M. Jarvis, A Brief History of the American Journal of Legal History, American Journal of Legal History 51:1, 9 (2011)
In their seminal work on the evolution of the growth of American legal history as a field of study, William E. Nelson and John Phillip Reid noted that the journal is "a publication in which academic historians speak to each other . . . [and] virtually every one of the many articles in the journal [is] essential reading for those wishing to keep current in the field."William E. Nelson and John Phillip Reid, The Literature of American Legal History 207 (1985)
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