As faculty advisor to a law review, I deliver opening remarks at the law review’s annual banquet. Mostly these consist of giving thanks to the graduating law review members for their dedication and hard work.
They devote thousands of hours each year to painstakingly selecting, editing, formatting, proofing and–of course, cite-checking–scholarly articles.
Cite-checking requires mastering The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, a ridiculously-but-addictively complex 560-page manual of rules for referencing legal authorities. (See The World’s Greatest Law Review Article. )
This year I tried to add levity to my remarks with some words of wisdom incorporating every “introductory signal” from Rule 1. 2 of The Bluebook and throwing in a few “short-form” citation rules. (If you are not a law review or Bluebook geek, this will make no sense at all. )
Corny, but it went over well, maybe because law review students are starved for frivolity.
