Law Review Article Submission Resources (Spring 2008)
posted by Daniel Solove
I’m reprising my post of law review submission resources that I last posted in fall 2007. I assume that most of the information hasn’t changed since then, but I haven’t had a chance to recheck it.
So I thought I’d tap the powers of the blogosphere — please let me know if any of the information below has changed.
Also, a request to law review editors: Please put in the comments when you plan to begin reviewing articles for the spring submission season.
Article Submission Length Restrictions
Emory Law School’s Library has a very useful chart of article length restrictions at the top 35 law reviews.
The general consensus is that many top law reviews have an article length limit of 35,000 words and a preference for no more than 25,000 words. Virginia Law Review has the strictest policy, with a limit (not just a preference) of under 25,000 words. All the rest have either no upper limit or a 35,000 to 40,000 word limit. As for preferences, the range is between 25,000 to 35,000 words, with most at 25,000.
Law Review Contact Information
1. Emory Law School’s Library maintains contact information, including email addresses, for the top 25 law reviews.
2. JURIST has links to countless law review websites.
3. LexisNexis Directory of Law Reviews
Law Review Rankings
Washington & Lee’s Law Library has a comprehensive ranking of law reviews based on citation counts.
Electronic Submissions
1. ExpressO provides for electronic submission to over 550 law reviews. However, a number of the top 25 law reviews still require either paper submissions or electronic submissions via their own website. For those law reviews not allowing an ExpressO electronic submission, ExpressO will print out the article and send it to these journals in hard copy. It costs extra for these submissions.
Chart of Law Review Submission Policies and Webpages
After the break is a chart of the submission policies and submission pages for several top law reviews.
| LAW REVIEW | EXPRESSO | ONLINE SUBMISSION PAGE | WORD LENGTH |
| California | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | 35,000 or less |
| Chicago | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | None |
| Columbia | Hard Copy | Yes | 32,000 or less preferred; not more than 37,000 |
| Cornell | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | 30,000 or less preferred |
| Duke | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | 35,000 or less |
| Fordham | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | None |
| Georgetown | Electronic (No Preference) | Yes | 35,000 or less |
| George Washington | Electronic | No | None |
| Harvard | Hard Copy | Yes | 25,000 or less preferred; not more than 35,000 |
| Illinois | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | None |
| Indiana | Electronic | No | None |
| Iowa | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | None |
| Michigan | Hard Copy | Yes | 25,000 or less strongly preferred |
| Minnesota | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | None |
| NYU | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | 35,000 or less preferred |
| North Carolina | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | 25,000 or less preferred; not more than 40,000 |
| Northwestern | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | 35,000 or less |
| Notre Dame | Electronic | No | None |
| University of Pennsylvania | Hard Copy (prefers its own site) | Yes | 35,000 or less |
| Southern California | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | None |
| Stanford | Electronic (prefers its own site) | Yes | 30,000 or less |
| Texas | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | None |
| UCLA | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | 35,000 or less |
| Vanderbilt | Hard Copy | No | None |
| Virginia | Electronic | No | 25,000 or less strongly preferred; not more than 30,000 |
| William & Mary | Hard Copy | No | None |
| Wisconsin | Electronic (Expresso Preferred) | No | 37,000 or less |
| Yale | Electronic (prefers its own site) | Yes | 30,000 or less preferred; 35,000+ strongly discouraged |
February 21, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Posted in: Law School (Law Reviews), Law School (Scholarship)
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Responses (2)
Michael Risch - February 22, 2008 at 7:39 am
Georgetown’s online submission form (at least a couple days ago) said to use Expresso instead when I logged in. I don’t know if that’s still true, but it’s something to look for.
Hanah Volokh - February 22, 2008 at 2:30 pm
I’m the outgoing Senior Articles Editor at The Georgetown Law Journal. Georgetown no longer uses its online submission page due to technical difficulties. We now accept submissions only through ExpressO or in hard copy.
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