Writing for & Publishing in Law Reviews

Updated July 29, 2008.
Prepared by Mary Whisner & Ann Hemmens.

Legal Research Guides

• What techniques are useful for finding interesting topics?
• Is there any way to find out about upcoming law review symposia?
• Where can I find the addresses of law reviews? Can I submit my article electronically?
• What about working papers? Are there places to share my article in progress?
• What about e-journals?
• Which are the best law reviews? Are there rankings of law reviews?
  • Citation studies
  • Author prominence
  • Surveys of experts in the field
  • Coverage of topics and style of article
• How do law reviews select articles?
• Are there tips for students who edit law reviews?
• Are there good guides for writing law review articles?
• How do I write a good abstract of my article?

The Current Index to Legal Periodicals and Hein Online are UW Restricted databases. LexisNexis and Westlaw require users to have individual passwords or IDs.

What techniques are useful for finding interesting topics?

In addition to talking to people (your professors, practicing attorneys, judges etc.), you may find several of these print and online resources helpful in your search for a topic.

General Advice

• Elizabeth Fajans & Mary R. Falk, Scholarly Writing for Law Students: Seminar Papers, Law Review Notes, and Law Review Competition Papers, 2d ed. KF250 .F35 2000 at Reference Area.
• The chapter "Inspiration: Choosing a Subject and Developing a Thesis," includes ideas on finding and narrowing a paper topic. Other chapters address research strategies, the writing process, and writing style.
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• Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, and Seminar Papers, 2003. KF250 .V6 2003 at Reference Area.
• This book covers many useful topics, from choosing a topic to reviewing drafts, from quoting and citing sources accurately to source-checking. The book evolved from the author's article, Writing a Student Article, 48 J. Legal Ed.246 (1998). Available on Hein Online. Prof. Volokh also has a website.
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• Heather Meeker, Stalking the Golden Topic: A Guide to Locating and Selecting Topics for Legal Research Papers, 1996 Utah L. Rev. 917. Available on Hein Online, LexisNexis & Westlaw.
• This article includes tips on how to find a topic, different types of topics (traditional and nontraditional), and how to conduct preemption research to determine if the topic you are interested in is the topic of an existing article.
• BNA, Finding a Topic/Case on Which to Write. A  PowerPoint presentation that describes the use of Bureau of National Affairs (BNA) publications for locating topics for notes and comments.
• BNA, Locating Paper Topics. A pamphlet that describes using BNA's topical newsletters and alert services.
• LexisNexis, Finding a Topic for Your Student Note. This web-based tutorial takes you through using the Search Advisor, preemption checking, Mealey's topical newsletters, and updating your research.

Looking for Circuit Splits and Other Judicial Developments

United States Law Week. KF105.1.U5 at Reference Area & Reference Office. Available on BNA, LexisNexis & Westlaw

This weekly publication provides current analysis of significant federal and state cases in all practice areas as well as important legislative and regulatory developments.

Sample searches (within BNA):

• To find circuit splits:
  • circuit* near split* and date after 1/1/2006
  • (circuit* near split*) and employment and date after 1/1/2006
• To find recent stories about free speech: free speech [within headings only] and date after 1/1/2007

 

Seton Hall Circuit Review. Shelved by title, current issues at Reference Area; older issues at Compact Stacks.

This relatively new law review includes a "Current Circuit Splits" column. It is arranged by topic under civil and criminal law categories.

Split Circuits. A blog dedicated to tracking developments concerning splits among the federal circuit courts, by law professor A. Benjamin Spencer.

• Westlaw ALLFEDS: sy,di(split conflict /s circuit authority) & da(>2006)
• Westlaw WA-CS: co(low) & "first impression" & da(>2005)
• Westlaw SCT-PETITION (database of petitions for certiorari -- includes petitions that were denied as well as those granted): "employment discrimination" & split /p circuit authority

Looking for Legal Developments Generally

Topical newsletters

Many newsletters focus on current developments and trends in particular areas of law (e.g., affordable housing, construction, ethics, labor). Articles are usually short and the newsletters may be available in print and online and published weekly or monthly. Look for legal newsletters in the topical or practice area pages on LexisNexis and Westlaw or use BNA newsletters. (UW law students and faculty can subscribe to the BNA newsletters by email too. Follow the link here.)

Also consider industry newsletters that aren't specifically legal -- they will often discuss legal issues on the horizon. Industry newsletters are available in ABI-INFORM and PROMT (both on LexisNexis and Westlaw).

 

Legal newspapers

Weekly publication cycles enable legal newspapers to report quickly on news about pending or recently decided/settled cases and other current legal issues. Browse headlines for ideas. Examples include the National Law Journal (Westlaw: NLJ & LexisNexis: NTLAWJ) and Legal Times (Westlaw: LEGALTIMES & LexisNexis: LGLTME ). These and other legal newspapers are indexed  by LegalTrac, available through Marian and on Westlaw: LRI & LexisNexis: LGLIND. On LexisNexis, use Legal > Legal News > Legal News by Practice Area to browse for news in 20 categories.

 

Westlaw Bulletin: WLB

This database contains summaries of recent developments in federal and state judicial, legislative, and administrative law. It is updated daily.

 

Westlaw Topical Highlights

These databases (currently 22) contain summaries of federal and state decisions and legislative, and administrative activities in particular areas of law (e.g., antitrust, family law, maritime law). Documents are added daily.

 

LexisNexis Practice Pages

Utilize the current awareness tools provided on the Practice Pages (link in upper right hand corner). Choose an area of law (e.g., environmental, immigration, securities) and look for the "Current Awareness" or "Recent News & Legal Developments" links. These shortcuts run already created searches run in current databases.

Looking for Recent Scholarly Publications

Current Index to Legal Periodicals (CILP). K33.C87 at Reference Area. Available on the Internet for UW users only (last 6 weeks) & Westlaw: CILP (last 8 weeks).

This current awareness tool provides quick access to the contents of over 500 legal periodicals, either through the Table of Contents or organized within 100 legal subjects. Law review articles are indexed here 4-6 weeks before they are indexed by commercial legal periodical indexes such as LegalTrac or the Index to Legal Periodicals. Note: UW law faculty and students can subscribe to SmartCILP, a tailored version of CILP that send you just the articles indexed under the subject headings you choose.

Blogs

Other People's Topic Ideas

ACS ResearchLink, hosted by the American Constitution Society, is a free online resource designed to help law students search for topics for law review notes and seminar papers. Public interest research topics are submitted by practitioners including non-profit organizations (e.g., legal aids groups) from around the country.

Searching law reviews on LexisNexis or Westlaw

Try searching in databases containing the full-text of law reviews for indications in an article that the author has mentioned an interesting question in need of further research. Try phrases such as "open question," "interesting topic," or "article topic." LexisNexis: ALLREV & Westlaw: JLR. Sample search: interesting or intriguing or open /s question or issue /s "beyond the scope" and date(>2005)

Casebooks and Treatises

Scan the notes in casebooks (and especially recent casebook supplements) for hypotheticals or comments that some issue is unresolved. Search treatises online for "open question" and similar phrases.

More on current awareness sources:

Is there any way to find out about upcoming law review symposia?

The Legal Scholarship Blog lists conferences, symposia, and calls for papers. You can search by topic, you can use the calendar to find upcoming paper deadlines, or you can simply browse the listings. Posts usually link to the journals' or conference organizers' websites for more information.

 

Law Review Symposia, compiled by Prof. Rick Bales at Northern Kentucky University, is another source.

BEPress's Law Review Symposia lists topics, journals, and sometimes dates, but it does not give submission information.

Current Index to Legal Periodicals, Periodicals Information

This website contains the addresses for all periodicals indexed by the Current Index to Legal Periodicals, which is published by the Gallagher Law Library at the University of Washington School of Law. The list is organized alphabetically.

 

On-line Directory of Law Reviews and Scholarly Legal Periodicals

This directory, compiled by Law Professor Michael H. Hoffheimer, includes contact information for law reviews and scholarly periodicals edited by students or faculty at ABA accredited law schools as well as selected journals published by academic associations, trade publishers, and bar groups in the U.S. The contact information provided includes each journal's editorial address as well as telephone and fax numbers and email addresses as appropriate. An alphabetical listing of publications by title is provided.

 

Law Review Electronic Submissions

This website, sponsored by the Salmon P. Chase College of Law, lists law reviews that accept electronic submissions and provides website links and email addresses. The site also offers information about upcoming symposium issues.

 

Most-Cited Legal Periodicals: U.S. and Selected Non-U.S.

Includes features to help authors submit articles to journals. By clicking "author submit" the page will generate a list of e-mail addresses enabling an author to simultaneously e-mail an article to multiple journals. The webpage includes individual journal upload/e-mail links (where it's inappropriate to include the article in a multiple e-mail list), and editorial addresses for journals that require submissions via U.S. mail. The list can be limited to student-edited journals or to peer-reviewed journals. This database also ranks journals by citation frequency and impact. See below.

 

For other sources, see the Gallagher guide on Resources for Keeping Up & Staying Current.

Berkeley Electronic Press offers Expresso, a service that makes it easier to submit articles electronically. The fee is $2 per law review.

Note: the UW School of Law has an institutional subscription to Expresso for its faculty. If you are on Expresso's list of UW law faculty, you can obtain a password via email: just enter your email address on the log-in screen and leave the password line blank.

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What about working papers? Are there places to share my article in progress?

The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) includes abstracts and working papers organized by field - including the Legal Scholarship Network (LSN).

• LSN publishes a broad series of email abstracting journals of working papers and articles accepted for publication. In addition to including abstracts of scholarly papers, we also publish weekly Professional Announcements that include announcements such as important professional meetings, calls for papers and special issues of journals, and Professional Job Listings that carry announcements of open positions in academia and industry."
• You can register and post your paper.
• You can search the papers and abstracts.
• Many abstracts link to papers that can be downloaded in PDF.

What about e-journals?

Lists of electronic-only law reviews and law reviews that have some issues are articles freely available on the Internet are available at:

• the Law Library of Congress
• the University of Southern California Law Library
• the Stanford Law School, Robert Crown Law Library

What are the best law reviews? Are there rankings of law reviews?

Scholars have tried various methods of ranking law reviews -- reputation, the prominence of authors, and rates of citation.

Citation studies

Citation studies are the most common. They look at how often a journal was cited -- either in other journal articles or by courts.

Kincaid C. Brown, How Many Copies Are Enough? Using Citation Studies to Limit Journal Holdings, 94 L. Libr. J. 301 (2002).

A librarian at the University of Michigan compiled a list of citation-count studies (1930-2000)  and created a table consolidating the results. He undertook the project to help with the library's decision about how many copies of journals to subscribe to. But you can use his results for other purposes -- e.g., deciding where to submit your article for publication. Appendix B, p. 314 (p. 14 of the pdf), lists 14 studies. Appendix A, pp. 310-13 (pp. 10-13 of the pdf), is a table listing journals, arranged by an average of their rankings in 18 different lists. (Some studies had more than one list -- e.g., one by number of citations and one weighted by number of pages published.)

 

Most-Cited Legal Periodicals: U.S. and Selected Non-U.S

Law librarian John Doyle's database compiles information from a study that counted citations to journals in two large Westlaw databases: JLR (journals and law reviews) and ALLCASES (federal and state cases). Users may choose to see the list arranged by journal title or by ranking, including all journals, only specialized journals, or only journals from one country. Users may also select individual journals to compare. The database also has journals' addresses and information about their submission policies. See above.

 

Berkeley Electronic Press has a ranking of law reviews based on how many articles were submitted to each journal through the Expresso online submission service, with separate lists for general, student-edited law reviews and for subject-specific law journals.

Author prominence

Robert M. Jarvis & Phyllis G. Coleman, Ranking Law Reviews: An Empirical Analysis Based on Author Prominence, 39 Ariz. L. Rev. 15 (1997), available on Hein Online & Westlaw. (Note: LexisNexis version lacks tables.)

Tracey E. George & Chris Guthrie. An Empirical Evaluation of Specialized Law Reviews, 26 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 813 (1999), available on LexisNexis & Westlaw.

Ranks top 100 specialized law journals, based on author prominence. For critiques and the authors' response, see

Russell Korobkin, Ranking Journals: Some Thoughts on Theory and Methodology. 26 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 851 (1999), available on LexisNexis & Westlaw.

Legal Scholarship Network, a division of Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a scholarly legal network on the Internet. Rankings of the "Top 1000 Authors" at LSN, as measured by number of downloads of articles/abstracts is available via the "Top Authors" link on the homepage. Registration is not required to view this table, but to access the full data set on the website, (free) registration at SSRN HQ is required.

Surveys of Experts in the Field

Gregory Scott Crespi, Ranking International and Comparative Law Journals: A Survey of Expert Opinion, 31 Int'l Law. 869 (1997), available on Hein Online, LexisNexis & Westlaw.

Gregory Scott Crespi, Ranking the Environmental Law, Natural Resources Law, and Land Use Planning Journals: A Survey of Expert Opinion, 23 Wm. & Mary Envtl. L. & Pol'y Rev. 273 (1998), available on Hein Online, LexisNexis & Westlaw.

Coverage of Topics and Style of Article

Arthur Austin, The Top Ten Politically Correct Law Reviews, 1994 Utah L. Rev. 1319, available on Hein Online, LexisNexis & Westlaw.

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How do law reviews select articles?

Jason P. Nance & Dylan J. Steinberg, The Law Review Article Selection Process: Results from a National Study, 71 Alb. L. Rev. 565 (2008).

Are there tips for students who edit law reviews?

See the Gallagher guide on Cite-Checking & Library Research.

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Are there good guides for writing law review articles?

The most relevant books are:

Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review, 2d ed. KF250.V6 2005 at Reference Area

Effective Lawyering: A Checklist Approach to Legal Writing and Oral Argument. KF250.P37 2007 at Reference Area. Chapter 7 is on Academic Writing.

Scholarly Writing for Law Students: Seminar Papers, Law Review Notes, and Law Review Competition, 3d ed. KF250.F35 2005 at Reference Area

See also the Gallagher guide on Legal & General Writing Resources.

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Advice for new law professors on all aspects of writing for law reviews:

Richard Delgado, How to Write a Law Review Article, 20 U.S.F. L. Rev. 445 (1986). Available on Hein Online.

Nancy Levit, Scholarship Advice for New Law Professors in the Electronic Age, 16 Widener L.J. 947 (2007), available on HeinOnline, draft available available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=939007.

How do I write a good abstract of my article?