Apsa Law and Courts Section

The Law and Courts Section, one of the organized groups within the American Political Science Association (APSA), includes political scientists whose research and teaching interests center on law, courts, legal actors and processes, constitutional theory, law and society, and comparative legal studies. The Section conducts its business during the annual APSA meetings and regularly publishes a newsletter [Page 83]with short articles and commentary, produces an extensive online book review with international circulation, and operates a lively Listserv of daily conversations among political scientists and constitutional law professors in the United States and abroad.

With the growth it experienced in the late 1970s, the APSA decided to create organized sections to consolidate subfields and encourage communication among political scientists with common interests. The Law and Courts Section was one of the original six APSA sections founded in 1983. Originally entitled Law, Courts and Judicial Process, the Section shortened its name to Law and Courts in 1992. It has always been one of the largest sections in the APSA. In 2005, Law and Courts counted 868 members, making it the fourth largest of the thirty-seven organized sections.

Members elect Section leaders at the business meeting, held at the annual APSA meeting. Officers include a chair, chair-elect, secretary-treasurer, and five members of an executive committee. The Section plays a key role at APSA meetings by organizing panels, sponsoring short courses, and presenting annual awards to recognize lifetime achievement, outstanding teaching, and the field's best books and articles.

The Section newsletter, Law and Courts, contains articles, notices about Section business, and forthcoming books. For example, recent newsletters have included debates about the new institutionalism, comparative judicial studies, and the attitudinal model of the Supreme Court. Originally mailed, the editor now delivers the newsletter electronically to all Section members.

The Law & Politics Book Review (LPBR) is another electronic Section publication. Founded in 1991 by Herbert Jacob, the LPBR publishes reviews of newly released books and maintains a Web archive of all past book reviews. The LPBR has expanded from its initial focus on U.S. law and politics to include law, sociology, history, anthropology, and philosophy, as well as international and comparative topics. This enormously successful book review has grown from seven hundred subscribers in thirteen countries in 1993 to more than fourteen hundred subscribers in forty-one countries in 2006. Wayne McIntosh published reviews of more than two hundred books in 2005.

The Law and Courts Listserv, created and moderated by Howard Gillman, provides an open forum for daily online discussion of current legal issues (such as pending U.S. Supreme Court cases and judicial nominations) and research and teaching questions. During the early 1990s, the Section collaborated with the journal Review of Politics to publish one issue each year on law and courts research. Since then, Section members have periodically discussed launching a new journal for the subfield.

The APSA Law and Courts Section membership includes scholars with diverse theoretical and methodological approaches and with substantive interests ranging from judicial decision making to constitutional law doctrine to law and society. This heterogeneity has allowed it to welcome new viewpoints and to foster robust intellectual debate within the subfield.

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