Introduction to Nebraska Law Review, Volume 100:4

I am honored to write this brief (or, in the words of the managing editor’s admonition to me: “very brief”) introduction to Volume 100 of the Nebraska Law Review. As I write this, we are recovering from a two-year global pandemic, watching with trepidation the humanitarian crisis resulting from European armed conflict, and debating the appropriate level of government involvement in health mandates and education. In other words, the circumstances seem eerily like one hundred years ago when the first volume of this law review was published, as the country mended from the 1919–20 influenza pandemic, managed the fallout from World War I, and engaged in cultural battles debating governmental power to require school attendance and mandate the teaching of certain curricula. The more things change, the more they stay the same perhaps. Or, perhaps not. In many ways, this publication (and the College of Law itself) has changed dramatically and for the better since Volume 1. While this century-old publication has maintained its high quality, it has neither rested on its accomplishments nor simply rehashed the same tired debates. Like the University of Nebraska College of Law, its law review has continued to honor its past while also innovating, looking forward, and reflecting the very best of current legal analyses. As examples, we need look no further than this very issue of Volume 100, which contains insightful retrospectives as well as original examinations of modern legal issues from Nebraska Law alumni, faculty, and students