19951
J. LACKMAN – AFTERWORD: FORTY YEARS LATER
1025
Afterword: Forty Years Later
Jodi Lackman*
In his foreword to this issue of the McGill Law Journal, Jacques-Yvan Morin
wrote about the Journal’s past and its difficult beginnings. He has thus provided me an
excellent springboard from which to describe the present and consider the future of the
Journal. Forty years later, the McGill Law Journal’s bilingual, bijuridical nature
makes it unique in Canada and abroad. Our subscribers and contributors are located all
over the world. The Supreme Court of Canada often cites our articles in opinions. The
Journal is currently run by a board of fifteen law students, each of whom receives aca-
demic credit from the Faculty of Law for his or her work on the Journal. The uniform
citation style, which was beyond the reach of the editors of Volume 1, has become a
reality through the Journal’s Canadian Guide to Unifonn Legal Citation. The Guide
not only governs the style in the Journal; it has also been adopted by many other jour-
nals across Canada and by some courts.
The McGill Law Journal was originally conceived as a “legal periodical … edited
by students and, largely, contributed to by students.” It has, however, outgrown that
conception; its pages include articles by students, professors, practitioners and judges.
It also no longer merely reflects what goes on in the legal world; it sometimes affects
the law. Earlier this year, an article slated for publication in Volume 40 was included as
an appendix to a factum submitted to the Supreme Court of Canada. The lawyers of
two of the parties to the litigation called to confirm that the Journal was indeed plan-
ning to publish the article. I was pleasantly surprised that the Journal could have an ex
ante, and not merely ex post facto, impact on the law.
The McGill Law Journal has an enviable reputation in the world of legal scholar-
ship and is even in a solid state of financial health. Nonetheless, if we stop to rest on
our laurels, we risk falling behind in the global village that our world has become.
With so much information currently available in electronic form, it is possible that the
printed-on-paper form of the Journal could soon become obsolete. It is entirely that, in
the very near future, our subscribers will receive their copies of the Journal on disk or
through the Internet. With the Journal’s current facilities and the implementation of in-
house typesetting this year, computerized distribution of the McGill Law Journal could
easily be accomplished.
Fourth year law student (National Program), McGill University, and Editor-in-Chief of the McGill
Law Journal/Revue de droit de McGill, Volume 40.
McGill Law Journal 1995
Revue de droit de McGill
To be cited as: (1995) 40 McGill LJ. 1025
Mode de r~fdrence: (1995) 40 R.D. McGill 1025
1026
MCGILL LAW JOURNAL/REVUE DE DROITDE MCGILL
[Vol. 40
A greater challenge for the Journal is the current trend towards specialization. The
increasing number of specialized law journals has somewhat eroded the amount of
submissions we receive as a general law journal. It is my opinion, however, after a
year of running a general law journal, that it is very special to find an article on On-
tario’s family mediation system in the same issue as an article on the history and future
of nullities in the civil law. I hope that, as the Journal adapts to the twenty-first cen-
tury, it does not lose the ability to remain on the cutting edge of many areas of legal
scholarship.
I am certain, that whatever form the Journal takes forty years from now, it will
have adapted and maintained its strength because its most important asset is the people
who are involved in it: the thirty students who spend their spare time arguing over co-
lons and chasing footnotes, everyone who works at McGill’s Faculty of Law, tie
authors who submit articles, the evaluators who comment on the articles and all of the
people who provide support to the involved parties. I know that my work at the Jour-
nal would not have been possible this year without the dedication of the Executive and
of the whole Board and their uncomplaining acceptance of my nagging; without Pro-
fessor Healy’s patient support and calm dismantling of what seemed “tragedies” to me;
without Nicole Leger, who is the Journal’s Person Friday; and especially without the
understanding, support and good humour of my loved ones. Being at the helm of the
McGill Law Journal has been a pleasure and an honour, and as I pass that honour to
my successors, I am confident that, forty years from now, the Editor-in-Chief of Vol-
ume 80 will express the same sentiments, with the only difference being that he or she
will have been running an even better McGill Law Journal
Jodi Lackman
Editor-in-Chief
Volume 40
