Publishing to law reviews as a student Forum

[crEEp]

I wrote a paper for one of my spring classes, and the professor agreed that it was publishable. At the beginning of August, I submitted to about 20 law reviews (T100) and specialty journals, but only two of them rejected my publication. The one "overlooked" portion was my abstract: it's only 80 words, and I noticed that most have a requirement of about 150 words. Should I rewrite the abstract and then resubmit? Two months seems a lot of time to wait (I haven't even received confirmation of receipt!), but it's my understanding that the fall submission season is pretty hectic.

[Blindmelon]

I wrote a paper for one of my spring classes, and the professor agreed that it was publishable. At the beginning of August, I submitted to about 20 law reviews (T100) and specialty journals, but only two of them rejected my publication. The one "overlooked" portion was my abstract: it's only 80 words, and I noticed that most have a requirement of about 150 words. Should I rewrite the abstract and then resubmit? Two months seems a lot of time to wait (I haven't even received confirmation of receipt!), but it's my understanding that the fall submission season is pretty hectic.

Really tough to get published in a LR as a student. Have you thought of submitting it to your own as a note? Maybe hitting specialty journals or secondaries? They are much more apt to look at students. My T30 journal auto-rejects any student papers.

[random5483]

Many law reviews (all the ones that I know of) auto reject any student Notes/Comments that are from students from other schools. Most law reviews only publish very Notes/Comments written by students from their own schools. Often, meeting "publishable" quality is insufficient for student articles; while, the same quality would be sufficient if written by a law professor or other legal scholar. Student articles often have to go beyond mere publishable quality. Think of it this way. Most law reviews have 30+ 2Ls writing Notes/Comments, hoping that they get published. Each of these students spends 100s of hours on their papers. Maybe 3-5 of them get published (give or take a few). More likely than not, more than 3-5 of them have publishable quality papers.

Good luck. Getting published it definitely possible, especially with secondary journals. Good luck! You will need it (and so will I).

[TTH]

You might also look to the periodicals produced by the various sections of the ABA. While they aren't as prestigious as a law school publication, any publication is a good publication, and an ABA publication might be more of a feather in your cap with regard to practitioners.

[EliHBCU]

If you're at all interested in getting published online TheStudentAppeal.com publishes student written legal articles. Just a thought.

[Danteshek]

I'm a student an LR at Loyola-LA. I published my note with a secondary at the Univ. of Maryland last year. I suggest finding a really hot topic and being the first person out there with an article. In my case I got the offer in February 2011 with a draft about the proposed SEC whistleblower rules that came out in November 2010. When the final rules were published in May 2012, I worked around the clock and got the final version to the journal in a matter of days. It was published in August 2012.

With 550 law journals in the US, if you write something good, it will be published somewhere. I agree that The Student Appeal is a good option.