As a law student you can certainly expect to research and write a paper (or two) during the course of your tenure. Ever wondered if that hard work has the chops to be published in a law review, specialty or bar journal, writing competition, symposium, etc.? A few of the fine folks at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law have compiled a fantastic article for law students considering just that!1
The article outlines suggestions and tips for student writers, including how to assess “publishability,” considering your target audience, opportunities for publication, and submission strategies. It features plenty of great footnotes and resources on academic writing and law review article formatting to help you on your way to preparing for publication. Additionally, there is a chart of the policies of 196 flagship law reviews outlining whether they publish comments submitted by non-law review members who are students at their home school or notes, comments, or articles submitted by law students from other schools. The chart also contains information regarding other submission particulars, including special formatting requirements, how to contact them to request an expedited review, and how to contact them to withdraw an article from consideration. This list was updated in January 2022 and can be reviewed here.
If you’re published during your time as a UR Law student, please consider sharing your work in the UR Scholarship Repository. The repository is a service of the University Libraries (including the Law Library) and includes items reflecting the research and scholarly work of the UR community. Submitting your work to the repository increases the visibility and reuse of your work and also mitigates data loss. If you have questions about the repository, or would like assistance submitting your research, please contact Sam Cabo (scabo@richmond.edu).
Levit, Nancy and MacLachlan, Lawrence Duncan and Rostron, Allen K. and Greaves, Drew and Pratt, Staci, Submission of Law Student Articles for Publication (August 23, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3909968 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3909968
Rostron, Allen K. and Levit, Nancy, Information for Submitting Articles to Law Reviews & Journals (January 27, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1019029 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1019029