Law reviews work hard to prevent and correct errors. They exert prodigious cite-checking, editing, and proofreading efforts to make sure their articles are as error-free as possible. They also try to prevent errors by readers: they publish articles aimed at correcting existing errors, and they edit articles with an eye toward eliminating misleading statements that might unintentionally lead readers into error. Yet new technologies can let law reviews do more to prevent and correct errors, without a vast amount of extra work.

On July 13, 2006, my fellow blogger, Marty Lederman, sent me a copy of a proposed surveillance bill drafted by Senator Arlen Specter’s office. For months, Marty and I had been covering the controversy over the National Security Agency’s (NSA) domestic surveillance program on our group blog, Balkinization. We argued repeatedly that the NSA program was illegal. The Supreme Court’s Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision in June only seemed to confirm our conclusions.

I’m asked how the Internet will change what law journals do, but why are we assuming there should be any change at all? Law journals, distinguished by depth of scholarship and dedication to detailed and accurate support and citation, occupy a unique niche within the legal profession, and to preserve this important tradition may take all the energy you law students have.