As the only law review in our state, the West Virginia Law Review takes seriously its obligation to serve both academia and our state’s legal community. We serve those interests by publishing articles that are nationally relevant along with articles that address issues in West Virginia. Historically, this Law Review has published special issues such as the National Coal Issue and the Energy and Sustainability Issue, reflecting the unquestioned importance of those areas of law to our state. However, we recognize that our state’s legal community is well-served by academic analysis of all areas of law. We also recognize that research specific to West Virginia can be difficult to find through major commercial avenues. As such, Volume 117 of the West Virginia Law Review is proud to launch the West Virginia Law Review Online.
Our goal is to publish articles that focus on West Virginia issues. Most of our articles will be written by our own editors, WVU College of Law professors, and practitioners from our state. Many will be shorter than a traditional law review article, so as to offer more accessible publication opportunities for lawyers and judges. By providing relevant, topical, high-quality legal research to practitioners in our state, our Law Review will better fulfill its duty to support the state’s legal community.
Legal academia, although a conventional industry, is not immune to increasing reliance on technology and the internet. The West Virginia Law Review Online embraces this change. As the fourth oldest law review in the United States, the West Virginia Law Review now joins the growing but limited number of legal journals to establish a substantial online companion. In its inaugural year, the West Virginia Law Review Online will publish approximately twenty student-written articles on the new West Virginia Law Review website. In the future, we will solicit articles from professors, practicing attorneys, clerks, and judges from West Virginia.
The Editors of Volume 117 hope that this venture improves the quality and quantity of legal research available in our state. We hope that it can grow into something used frequently by attorneys, clerks, and judges researching legal issues. More than that, we hope the articles we publish are useful to those who rely on them. Thank you for reading the West Virginia Law Review Online.
David Stone
Editor-in-Chief, Volume 117
West Virginia Law Review
