In 1974, a group of enterprising students at The University of Iowa College of Law hit on a new idea: forming a specialty law journal dedicated exclusively to corporate law.  A student-run journal of this kind did not exist at the time.  A year later, and after tremendous support—financial and otherwise—from Father David C. Bayne of the law school’s faculty, the first issue of The Journal of Corporation Law (JCL) rolled off the presses.   

Former faculty advisor Randall S. Thomas writes the following about JCL’s early years:  

An extended period of strong development of JCL followed. Dean Hines recalls that, “the Board had ambition, and the journal grew and established a niche.” Not long after JCL’s inception, it “had established a place within the Law School and competed with the Law Review for students.”  

Early success matured into lasting contributions to the corporate law field.  Two of the most prominent examples include an article entitled Challenges to Executive Compensation: For the Market of Courts? by Professor Detlev Vagts of the Harvard Law School, an article on which an entire scholarly field on executive compensation was built.  Several years later, JCL’s 1991 symposium volume on proxy voting reform had a material influence on the SEC’s 1992 proxy reform rules, according to SEC staffers.   

JCL continues to publish scholarship on the bleeding edge of corporate law.  Recent articles touch on everything from blockchain-enabled governance to the emerging discourse around which constituencies a corporation ought to serve.  It remains one of the highest ranked corporate law journals in the U.S., according to W&L Law Journal Rankings. And it remains committed to the broad and adventurous scholarly scope established by its past editors and contributors.