Legal Commentary

A colleague stopped by office to whine about what law review editors were doing to his writing.  S/he is one of those lovable grumpy types who likes to talk about the good old days; so long as they were old, they were good.  During the anti-Bluebook part of his speech, s/he claimed that standard form back in those good old days only required last names in citing articles and books (though s/he suggested that books used first initials).  That sounded right and coheres with what old articles look like.  Since I've grown up as a scholar under the "new" rules, I don't give them much thought; it seems rational enough to include full names.

But then s/he claimed something I hadn't heard before: that the Bluebook started requiring full names in citing articles and books "so that law review writers would be more transparent about the gender of the authors they were citing in their articles."  In short, s/he claimed that law review editors are engaging in a form of feminist activism by requiring full names.  Although I don't really care about this particular rule in the Bluebook (whereas the "et al." rules strike me as quite dated and worth fighting against -- especially for the citation of articles where I am a second or third author), I do find it rather funny, if it is true.

Is it?  Were you part of this generation of Bluebook editors that adopted this change?  Did you imagine that it would help women and reveal the patriarchy for what it is?  Is this tale made up?  Do tell.