Top Ranking

The new Washington & Lee annual survey of law reviews again ranks the St. Mary's Law Journal among the best in the nation in terms of citations by state and federal courts.

The St. Mary's Law Journal ranked #22 among 667 law reviews published in the United States. The Law Journal was cited 75 times by American courts during the period covered by the survey (2005-2012).

Tied at #22, the St. Mary's Law Journal ranked just ahead of #24 Cardozo Law Review, #25 The University of Chicago Law Review, #26 Notre Dame Law Review, #27 Texas Tech Law Review, #27 Wisconsin Law Review, # 29 American University Law Review, #30 California Law Review, and #31 The George Washington Law Review.

The flagship law journals at NYU, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Michigan, Yale, and Virginia all appeared in the top ten.

The St. Mary's Law Journal was also cited 417 times in scholarly and professional articles during the survey period, placing it among the top 30% of the 970 American publications in that category.

Widely Influential

Over the last ten years, the St. Mary's Law Journal has been cited by the supreme courts of twenty-four states.  Six of the citations by the state supreme courts have been to comments written by students on the St. Mary's Law Journal. In addition to the numerous citations by state supreme courts, during that same time period the St. Mary's Law Journal was also cited by United States Courts of Appeals on fifteen different occasions. A breakdown of the citations by circuit courts shows that the Second Circuit cited the St. Mary's Law Journal four times over the last ten years, the Third Circuit cited the Journal once, the Fourth Circuit cited the Journal in a dissent, the Fifth Circuit cited the Journal six times, the Seventh Circuit cited the Journal twice, and the Ninth Circuit cited the Journal three times. The frequency of citations by federal appellate courts reinforces the Journal's longstanding belief that publishing quality legal scholarship will assist in understanding and administering the law. The St. Mary's Law Journal has also been cited by the United States Supreme Court on three separate occasions. Justice Powell cited the Journal in 1975, Justice Marshall cited the Journal in 1979, and most recently in 2006, the St. Mary's Law Journal was cited by Justice Thomas.

Award-Winning

The St. Mary's Law Journal has won the Texas Bar Foundation's Outstanding Article Award on several occasions, including twice recently. In 1999, the Journal also won the best article award from the state bar Labor and Employment Section.

Respected

In August 2002, the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court relied upon a student-written work in deciding a case involving police use of "stun belt." Chief Justice Ronald George wrote , "The St. Mary's Law Journal comment cited by the Court of Appeal is a lengthy and well-researched article that has been cited in a number of prior judicial decisions." In April 2003, the Texas Court of Appeals cited Robert J. Kramer's (class of 2003) authoritative review of the Texas Arbitration Act as the basis for deciding legal malpractice issues before the court. In November 2003, the Texas Court of Appeals cited the work of Daniel M. Martinez (class of 2004) in deciding whether insurance companies can provide representation to insureds by using in-house counsel without violating the prohibition against unauthorized practice of law. In June 2006, Justice Clarence Thomas of the United States Supreme Court cited an address by former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist that the St. Mary's Law Journal published in Volume 21. Additionally, in May 2008, a panel in the United State Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit relied on Heather Harrison Volik's article addressing the classification of the unauthorized use of a motor vehicle as a crime of violence when urging an en banc reversal of circuit precedent.

Prestigious

Among the authors who have published in the St. Mary's Law Journal are the Honorable William H. Rehnquist, former Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court; the Honorable Carla Hills, then a member of the Cabinet; Father F. Darin, S.J., a former member of the House Watergate Committee; Broadus A. Spivey, President of the State Bar of Texas; and numerous Justices of the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.