ABA Journal

About ABA Journal

The ABA Journal is the flagship magazine of the American Bar Association, published in Chicago, Illinois, and read by a substantial share of the nation's lawyers. First published in January 1915 as the American Bar Association Journal, it has chronicled the American legal profession for more than a century — its trends, its people and its finances — and is complemented today by the full-featured website abajournal.com, e-newsletters and apps.

The Annual Bulletin: A Comparative-Law Beginning

The Journal's lineage begins in 1908, when the Comparative Law Bureau of the American Bar Association founded the Annual Bulletin. The first comparative law journal in the United States, it surveyed foreign legislation and legal literature and was circulated to all ABA members. It ran from 1908 to 1914 before being absorbed in 1915 by the ABA's newly formed Journal.

The Bulletin reflected an early-twentieth-century ambition: to place American law in conversation with the legal systems of the world. That comparative impulse would fade as the Journal turned toward the domestic profession, but the scholarly seriousness of the founding publication set a standard the magazine has maintained.

The 1915 Launch

In 1915, the American Bar Association Journal was founded as a quarterly magazine, published by the ABA. It ran under that title from January 1915 to December 1983, spanning volumes 1 through 69. Quarterly from 1915 to 1920 — with its second-quarter issue dedicated to the Bulletin — it became a monthly in 1921, a cadence it would keep for more than six decades.

Simeon Eben Baldwin — railroad lawyer, law professor and a principal founder of the ABA, who served as Association president in 1890 — is counted as a principal founder of the ABA Journal in 1915. The launch gave the organized bar its own national periodical at a moment when the profession was rapidly professionalizing.

The American Bar Association

The magazine's publisher, the American Bar Association, was established on August 21, 1878, when 75 lawyers from 20 states and the District of Columbia met in the town hall courtroom in Saratoga Springs, New York. James Overton Broadhead of Missouri was the Association's first president. Today the ABA is headquartered at 321 North Clark Street in Chicago.

The Association grew into the national voice of the legal profession, developing sections, divisions and forums — specialty groups focused on areas of practice — and playing a central role in legal education and admissions to the bar. The Journal has served as its flagship publication throughout, carrying the Association's debates and the profession's news to its members.

Renamed: The ABA Journal Era

In January 1984, with volume 70, the magazine was renamed the ABA Journal, subtitled "The Lawyer's Magazine." It initially stayed monthly, became 15 issues a year in May 1986, and returned to a monthly schedule in June 1999. In 2020 it moved to a bi-monthly frequency, adapting to the economics of print in the digital age.

The renaming marked the magazine's full emergence as a trade publication rather than an association proceedings. Under the shorter, punchier title, it leaned into magazine journalism — profiles, investigations and service features — while remaining the official voice of the ABA.

Readership and Circulation

The ABA Journal has long claimed to be read by half of the nation's lawyers every month — a remarkable penetration for any professional publication. In 2007, its print circulation, paid and unpaid, stood at 375,045, stable from 381,998 in December 1999. By 2021, total circulation was reported at 250,000. Its own professional networking profile describes the monthly magazine as read by half the nation's 1.1 million lawyers, a figure that underscores the publication's singular position: no other legal periodical reaches so large a share of the American bar.

The figures reflect both the magazine's reach and the broader pressures on print: even as circulation moderated, the Journal retained an audience that few legal publications could match, delivered to lawyers from Wall Street to Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, in the magazine's own phrase.

Going Digital: ABAJournal.com

In 1996, an online complement to the Journal appeared on the ABA website, initially offering the current issue's cover and table of contents with selected articles. The online presence grew steadily — from a handful of stories a month to dozens — and in 1999 the domain name ABAJournal.com was registered.

Today abajournal.com is a full-featured website updated with breaking legal news throughout every business day, complemented by the ABA Journal eReport newsletter and various apps. The digital operation has transformed the Journal from a monthly print cycle into a daily news source for the profession, covering court decisions, legal industry moves and regulatory developments as they happen.

Coverage: The Business and Practice of Law

The magazine covers the trends, people and finances of the legal profession — the business of law as well as its practice. Its pages report on law firm economics, lawyer regulation, legal technology, access to justice and the personalities shaping the profession, from managing partners to judges to legal educators.

The Journal's journalism has often set the agenda for professional debate: investigations into lawyer discipline, features on the changing economics of law firms, and coverage of technology — including artificial intelligence — reshaping how legal work is done. Its LinkedIn presence, with hundreds of thousands of followers, extends that conversation to social media.

The Centennial

In 2015, the ABA Journal marked its centennial, celebrating 100 years since the first issue of January 1915. The magazine used the occasion to look back at the century it had chronicled: when it first went to press, World War I was less than six months old, the Lusitania was still afloat, and Czar Nicholas II still ruled imperial Russia.

The centennial programming, including a "100 Years of Law" retrospective, underscored how much of American legal history the magazine had witnessed firsthand — the New Deal, the civil rights revolution, the rise of the administrative state, the digital transformation of practice. Few American magazines can claim a century of continuous publication in a single professional field.

Editorial Leadership

The magazine has been led over the years by editors including Allen Pusey, who served as executive editor and publisher, and Molly McDonough. John O'Brien is listed as the current editor and publisher. The editorial staff, based in Chicago, combines career legal journalists with contributors from across the profession.

The Journal welcomes comments and news tips from readers, inquiries from advertisers and subscription requests — maintaining the two-way relationship with the bar that has sustained it since 1915. Its newsroom remains one of the largest dedicated to covering the legal profession full-time.

Legacy

The ABA Journal's legacy is that of the profession's journal of record: the publication that has told American lawyers, month after month for more than a century, what is happening in their profession and what it means. From the Annual Bulletin's comparative-law surveys to today's daily digital newsroom, it has adapted its form while keeping its function.

As the flagship magazine of the American Bar Association, it remains the most widely read publication in American law — a century-old institution that still lands, in print and on screen, in the offices of hundreds of thousands of lawyers.