The Cornell Law Review has elected a senior editorial board made up entirely of women for the first time in the student-edited journal’s history. The new board also believes that this is the first all-female senior editorial board of a law journal at any of the top 14 law schools in the country.
The historic first comes 100 years after Mary Donlon Alger, a 1920 graduate of Cornell Law School, was the first woman elected editor-in-chief of a law review in the United States. She was followed at Cornell by three additional female editors-in-chief, also the next three who served in this role at law reviews across the country.
The senior board, composed of second-year law school students, will set the agenda for the review’s Volume 105, which will consist of seven issues published in 2019. Each issue features articles, essays, book reviews, and student notes. Student editors will go through thousands of submissions written by legal scholars including professors, judges, and law students to select the scholarship that will be accepted for publication in this year’s review.
“We see the great step that has been taken, but we’re also very aware of the many more steps that need to happen,” said Lori Kloss, incoming editor-in-chief of the Cornell Law Review. “This is going to be a great year. We could tell that from our very first meeting.”