The magazine at the intersection of law and life About legal Affairs The Mandate The law affects every important decision in America: how we work and play; what we buy and sell; what we can and can't say; and how we live, love, and die. The law has also become the #1 topic in American news. From the frenzy about O.J. Simpson, to the scandal of Bill Clinton, to Bush v. Gore, the most political ruling ever by the U.S. Supreme Court, the law commands national media attention. But until now, no magazine has been dedicated to exploring the link between law and our national culture. No magazine has reached beyond a readership of lawyers to appeal to fascinated non-lawyers. No magazine has been launched to entertain readers, enlighten them, and create a forum for intelligent conversation about the law. Legal Affairs is a new general-interest magazine about the law, designed to stand at the intersection of our laws and our lives. A bimonthly magazine (six issues a year) associated with Yale Law School, its premiere issue was published in March 2002. Legal Affairs is for decision-makers, problem-solvers, and opinion-shapers across the spectrum of America: in the law, in business and government, in the arts and sciences, and in the media. It is for general readers and lawyers whose curiosity about the law is not satisfied by occasional pieces in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and other publications. Legal Affairs aspires to be both engaging and edifying, offering an illuminating encounter with the law and the pleasure that comes from sharp, lucid writing. It aims to fulfill the need for a publication that responds to the deep interest Americans have in the law. The editorial mission of Legal Affairs includes another element that sets it apart from other magazines: Reform. For the past decade, lawyers ranging from Chief Justice William Rehnquist to deans of major law schools have described how the American legal profession has lost its way. Legal Affairs is designed to do what no other publication aspires to: To help strengthen American democracy. By creating a vibrant conversation about the most important topics and themes in legal affairs, the magazine has the potential to help transform the legal profession and civic life in the United States. If America's rule of law is to remain strong, the editors of Legal Affairs believe, the public debate on which this rule depends must be nourished. Legal Affairs hopes to contribute to journalism, to the legal profession, and to the law, by creating a general-interest magazine that will invigorate our democratic way of life. The Magazine Legal Affairs is the first magazine about the law, lawyers, and legal issues for general-interest readers and professionals. Starting in the Spring of 2002, it will be published six times a year as an independent, non-profit enterprise affiliated with Yale Law School. The magazine’s connection to Yale Law School gives it extraordinary access to outstanding writers and thinkers from America's top legal and social institutions. Anthony Kronman, Dean of the Law School and author of The Lost Lawyer: Failing Ideals of the Legal Profession, serves as chairman of the magazine. Lincoln Caplan, the Knight Senior Journalist at Yale Law School, is the editor and president. A former top editor of U.S. News & World Report and staff writer for The New Yorker, he is the author of five books and was described by the American Bar Association Journal as having “few peers in writing about the law and lawyers.” Legal Affairs will cover law as The New Yorker covers politics and culture, Scientific American covers science and technology, and the Harvard Business Review covers business and finance. Legal Affairs will tackle legal decisions that have an impact on our way of life; issues that define who we are and where we are headed; and choices that affect citizens around the world. It will publish intelligent commentary and compelling narrative, in a combination that stirs readers to think differently about major subjects. Writers for each issue will include prominent journalists, authors, scholars, and lawyers, delivering a mix of perspectives and voices -- Journalists like: James Fallows (The Atlantic Monthly), William Finnegan (The New Yorker), Linda Greenhouse (The New York Times), Jeffrey Rosen (The New Republic). Writers like: Christopher Buckley (contributor to The New Yorker), Doris Kearns Goodwin (historian), Jonathan Harr (author of A Civil Action), Edmund Morris (author of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt). Judges like: Stephen Breyer (U.S. Supreme Court), Judith Kaye (Chief Judge of the State of New York), Michael Boudin (U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit). Lawyers like: Louis Begley (New York City; also a contributor to The New Yorker), Stephen Bright (Atlanta), Jamie Gorelick (Washington, D.C.), Scott Turow (Chicago). Contents Each issue will look at the law more broadly than any current publication and will feature up to 15 departments ranging from “Terms of Art” (legal and intellectual history) to “Encounter” (portraits by lawyers about judges and by clients about lawyers) to “True Crime” (stories and insights about criminal justice). Other departments include: “First Person” -- Compelling first-person accounts, exposés, and confessions by participants and observers of legal affairs. “Counterpoint” -- Explorations of key legal issues through engaging debates between experts with opposing opinions. “Practice” -- An insiders' look at the legal profession that will take readers from the inner-workings of a large law firm, to the start-up of a legal clinic, to the battles fought by reformers of the law. “Reviews” -- Essays on the role of law in American society through reviews of television shows like “The Practice,” books like A Civil Action, and legal decisions like Bush v. Gore. “Accounts” -- Chronicles of events, reconstructions of history, and other forms of narrative that use story-telling as a means of exploring the drama of ideas behind intriguing legal choices. Articles on the docket now: Privacy -- Do TV plots pulled from family court records violate the privacy of real people? Prying -- Scott Turow on investigating judges, being investigated by prosecutors, and the morally ambiguous fictions he's written about both. Profit -- Should a convicted gang member be allowed to make money by selling his story . and the stories of his victims? Politics -- How defense lawyers in Turkey can be accused of treason when they represent unpopular clients such as Kurdish militants. Piracy -- The Internet Establishment -- major corporations like Microsoft and universities like MIT -- pushes a distorted version of democracy. Rebels want the Net to operate by new rules. Perfidy -- American doctors who perform abortions get death threats, while their Japanese counterparts get respect. The difference is telling. Pirouettes -- Why Kareem Abdul-Jabaar should be able to patent the sky hook. The Medium Design -- Legal Affairs is designed to seduce and transport, as well as to engage and enlighten. Designed by the highly regarded team of William Drenttel and Jessica Helfand (www.jhwd.com), the magazine is handsome, elegant, and arresting, presented in a contemporary style that will be an appealing showcase for advertisers and the products and services that matter to Legal Affairs’ readers. Audience -- Legal Affairs offers a base of readers from two general categories: the one million legal professionals in the United States -- lawyers, law professors, judges, law clerks, and other court personnel; and the estimated two million high-demographic readers with an interest in the law and its convergence with other key areas of our society. Legal Affairs’ readers will be attractive to advertisers whose products and services are directed at lawyers and the legal profession, including information services, data processing, business software, and recruitment; and to advertisers with broader, consumer-based messages in areas like books and music, publishing and online services, mail-order, corporate image, and financial services. Paid subscriptions from the legal profession will be generated from member lists of the American Bar Association and other legal organizations; from lists of lawyers who subscribe to legal trade publications; from lists of lawyers who subscribe to national publications like Newsweek; and from lists of lawyers identified in psychographic data about reading, subject, and other preferences. The magazine’s general-interest readers will come from subscribers of “thought leader” publications like The Atlantic Monthly, Smithsonian, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post National Weekly Edition. In this arena, the magazine will seek especially to attract dedicated readers with a keen interest in the law, as well as journalists, policy analysts, lobbyists, and others with a professional or practical interest in legal issues. Publishing Cycle -- Legal Affairs will launch with four issues in 2002, including Spring, Summer, September-October and November-December. The magazine will go bi-monthly in 2003. .