In this essay, I recount the history of the founding and early years of the Journal of Law and Religion from its origins in the Committee on Religion and Law through the editorial transitions in 1988 that led to a second phase of JLR’s history. In recounting this history, I focus on the exceptional scholars who brought JLR into existence and nurtured its growth during those early years, creating, in the process, not only new academic endeavor but a community and a kind of family.