Mapping the Publication Routes for Law Student Articles

How to get your article published for a law prof audience borders on a cottage industry but I've never seen one for law school students until Submission of Law Student Articles for Publication [SSRN]. Written by Nancy Levit, Lawrence D. MacLachlan and Allen Rostron (all University of Missouri at Kansas City - School of Law), the essay explains the hows and wherefores of academic publication by law students who are not “on” Law Review but may have written a great paper for one of their classes or seminars.

The authors map the publishing route for article submissions to a student's own and other schools' law reviews and includes a useful chart of the policies of 194 law reviews with respect to whether they will 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 essay also offers advice on submissions to specialty journals that focus on specific subject areas, bar journals and student writing competitions as routes to publication. If all else fails, the authors note that another course of action to take is simply to hold the article for submission until the student author has graduated.

Submission of Law Student Articles for Publication is a very useful resource for law librarians and faculty who advise or review student writing, and to students looking to get a leg up in scholarly publication. [JH]