The nation’s oldest law review now seeks to be its most cutting-edge law review with the University of Pennsylvania Law Review’s launch this week of a new Web site, PENNumbra. The site is intended to engage a broader audience in legal scholarship by serving as a link between legal academia and the blogosphere.

Call it “law review on steroids.” The site provides the traditional, full-text articles from the print edition of the law review, then adds brief scholarly responses to the articles and online debates between legal scholars on topics of current interest. Visitors can participate by posting their own comments to the site.

Features of the debut edition include:

  • Marci A. Hamilton and Mark Tushnet, responding to Erwin Chemerinsky’s Assessing Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
  • Frank Goodman and Theodore Ruger, responding to Jack M. Balkin & Reva B. Siegal’s Principles, Practices, and Social Movements.
  • Dan Markel, responding to Wayne A. Logan’s Horizontal Federalism in an Age of Criminal Justice Interconnectedness.
  • Ann M. Bartow, responding to Daniel J. Solove’s A Taxonomy of Privacy. Lyle Denniston, responding to Linda Greenhouse’s How Not To Be Chief Justice: The Apprenticeship of William Rehnquist.
  • William Burke-White and Abraham Bell, debating the United Nations’ continued relevance to the development of international law.

Founded in 1852 as the American Law Register, the UPenn Law Review claims to be the nation’s oldest law review.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.