This issue completes the volumes for which I have been honored to serve as editor of Law & Society Review. When I accepted this position, I knew that it would be very demanding of my time, but I expected it also to be intellectually rewarding. I have not been disappointed. I have read manuscripts in areas that are far from my own interests, and I have learned a great deal even from those that I was not able to accept for publication. During my academic career, I have had the opportunity to serve in several roles that have introduced me to literatures and issues beyond my usual purview, and while I have found them all interesting, none has been as rewarding as my work over the last four years (as I write this, it is almost exactly four years to the day that I began assigning reviewers and making decisions on manuscripts).

One of my goals as editor has been to publish manuscripts covering sociolegal phenomena in a wide range of countries. Not counting two issues published during my first year that were the product of the work of my predecessor, Joe Sanders, and not counting the presidential addresses and their associated commentaries, the Review will have included 82 articles over the four volumes of my editorship, 32 of which consider legal phenomena outside the United States. I believe the large proportion of articles dealing with non-U.S. settings is at least in part due to the switch to electronic submission, which allows non-U.S. authors to submit articles with little delay and little expense. It may also reflect my ability, as a result of our online system, to obtain reviews more easily from persons outside North America who were able to provide the guidance needed to ensure high-quality work about a wide range of countries, cultures, and legal systems.

At the conclusion of her editorship, Susan Silbey prepared a detailed statistical profile of work published in the Review. I had some thoughts of updating that survey, but personal developments (see below) intervened and I have not been able to do so. I did explore one aspect that she discusses: the gender of authors of articles appearing in the Review. The statistics reported by Silbey show that 31.8 percent of the authors of articles published between 1985 and 2000 are female. I considered only issues for which I selected articles, and I limited my consideration to peer-reviewed articles. I found that 37.1 percent of the authors in these issues are female.Footnote ¹ However, this figure hides an interesting pattern. Specifically, when I looked only at sole-authored articles, I found that 42.6 percent of the authors are female in contrast to multi-authored articles, where only 31.9 percent of the authors are female.Footnote ² Does this difference reflect inclinations regarding collaboration, or different types of research (with some research not lending itself to collaboration)?

While the move to electronic processing of manuscripts is probably the most important change that I implemented during my editorship, there is a second change that I believe has had a positive impact on the articles published in the Review. After I decided to accept an article, but before sending instructions for final revisions to the author(s), I sent the manuscript to a member of the editorial board whose areas of interest did not coincide with the focus of the manuscript. My request to the editorial board member was to provide advice regarding what the author(s) might do to broaden the appeal of the article. I received excellent suggestions in response to these requests. I would like to thank the members of the editorial board for taking on this task and to acknowledge their important role in producing articles that have a broad appeal.

I have also had a group of associate editors whom I have called on periodically for advice and assistance. Christopher Uggen, Eve Darian-Smith, Richard Ross, and Brian Tamanaha provided me with suggestions for reviewers, handled the review process in one or two cases where I was concerned that I might have a conflict, advised me on some difficult decisions, and provided a second view on a few occasions when an author strenuously objected to a decision I had made to decline a manuscript. This assistance was important to me, and made my job easier.

Dianne Sattinger served as the managing editor during my entire tenure as editor. Dianne has been a joy to work with. She managed the Review office, supervised our student assistants, handled much correspondence with authors, ensured that materials arrived at Blackwell in a timely fashion, and occasionally patiently listened to me as I hashed over issues with authors. The four political science graduate students who worked as editorial assistants in successive years, Rajen Subramanian, Lauren McCarthy, Marc Ratkovic, and Jess Clayton, made sure that manuscripts were ready to be sent for review, processed reviews as they came in, and tracked down e-mail addresses for reviewers whose addresses had changed. My ability to get decisions to authors in an average of about six weeks was in no small part due to the diligence of the editorial assistants in keeping current with the flow of manuscripts and reviews.

The University of Wisconsin's College of Letters & Science, Graduate School, Law School, and Department of Political Science all contributed toward the operation of the Review's editorial office. I want to express my deep appreciation for this support, without which I would not have been able to take on the editorship.

The issue after this one will mark the end of Elizabeth Heger Boyle's service as Book Review Editor. The responsibility for book reviews appearing in Volume 42, No. 2, will lie with Professor Scott Barclay. The major change Liz implemented was a return to more traditional reviews. Her logic was that there was a need for a source of reviews of law and society books, and that many more books could be covered through traditional reviews than was the case for the longer review essay format. Her work in finding and working with reviewers has resulted in thoughtful, informative, and useful reviews of new books in our field.

I complete my term as editor knowing that the Review is in Carroll Seron's excellent hands; as you read this, Carroll and her team at the University of California-Irvine have been hard at work for more than 12 months. I assume that in her first issue Carroll will share her thoughts regarding plans she has for possible special issues and other developments. In the meantime, she has provided me with a list of the articles she has accepted for future issues:

Coinciding with the end of my editorship is a major change in my professional and personal life. After 30 years at the University of Wisconsin, I have decided to move on. Last fall I was offered the opportunity to join the faculty of William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. Much of my own research and writing has focused on the work of lawyers working in smaller firms and solo practices, which are the work settings for a large percentage of Mitchell's graduates. This seems like an opportunity to work with students who will undertake the kinds of practices I have studied and quite possibly give me entrée for future research in those settings. It also offers me the chance to rethink my teaching in a very different kind of setting than I have worked in for the last 33 years. Finally, it also offers the opportunity to turn what has been a commuting marriage for the last 18 years into one where I do not have to spend eight to nine hours a week enjoying the scenery along Interstate 94, and to be near most of the rest of my immediate family. The moving van from Madison arrived in St. Paul yesterday, and this afternoon, my wife and I drive back to Madison to close on the sale of the house where we lived for 29 years, and which all three of our children will always think of as home.