Let Feeling, Passion, Reason, Sense appear—
But mark you! Let us have some Nonsense too!
    -Goethe

Whatever happened to humor in law reviews?

In the past, leading law reviews had no qualms about including legal humor. Yale, for example, published Jim Gordon’s How Not to Succeed in Law School, 100 YALE L. J. 1679 (1991). Northwestern published my The Gettysburg Address as Written by Law Students Taking an Exam, 86 Nw. U. L. REV. 1094 (1992). Michigan published Dennis Arrow’s incredible tome, Pomobabble: Postmodern Newspeak and Constitutional “Meaning” for the Uninitiated, 96 MICH. L. REV. 461 (1997).

At least two law reviews in the nineties published symposia on legal humor: BYU (Symposium on Humor and the Law, 1992 B.Y.U. L. REV. 313-558) and Nova (Nova [Humor in the] Law Review, 17 NOVA l. REV. 661-1001 (1993)). The BYU symposium even includes an excellent bibliography of legal humor: James D. Gordon, III, A Bibliography of Humor and the Law, 1992 B.Y.U. L. REV. 427.

The era of law review humor seems to have passed. There isn’t much legal humor in law reviews anymore. There are exceptions: Green Bag and the Journal of Legal Education publish quite a bit of humor. But the mainstream student-edited law reviews seem to have abandoned it.

I don’t know what happened. Perhaps this generation of law professors is more grave and earnest than my generation. Or maybe today’s law review editors simply aren’t willing to publish humorous articles. (They publish a good number of unintentionally humorous articles, but unwitting self-parody doesn’t count.)

Whatever the reason, it’s unfortunate. Humor can be a very effective tool. It’s also a sign of health in the legal profession and legal education. Humor exposes the cracks in a discipline; intolerance of humor is a sign of weakness. Beware the overly earnest argument.

I hope it’s not too late. Let’s stop treating everything so damn seriously and open the gate to a little nonsense. I want to laugh.