Home
About The Review
The Columbia Law Review is one of the world’s leading publications of legal scholarship. Founded in 1901, the Review is an independent nonprofit corporation that produces a law journal edited and published entirely by students at Columbia Law School. It is one of a handful of student-edited law journals in the nation that publish eight issues a year. The Review is one of the most widely distributed and cited law reviews in the country. It receives about 2,000 submissions per year and selects approximately 20–25 manuscripts for publication annually, in addition to student Notes. In 2008, the Review expanded its audience with the launch of an online supplement to its print issues. Columbia Law Review Forum, formerly known as Sidebar, brings together a diverse group of legal scholars, practitioners, community leaders, and judges into one forum for the discussion of pressing legal issues.
The Review’s Submission Options
The Review is proud to publish both Articles and Essays in its print volumes. While Articles and Essays are distinct in substance and tone, there is no difference in citation format between the two and our editing process is the same for both Articles and Essays. Our Articles and Essays Committees consider submissions independently, so we encourage you to submit your manuscript to either committee or both, depending on how you prefer to characterize your piece.
Continuing submission through this page will result in your submission being considered as an Article for print publication.
Articles
Articles tend to analyze a problem and suggest a solution. Such analysis usually articulates some background information to inform the reader, before turning to a novel argument. Along these lines, published articles regularly follow a traditional roadmap of introduction, background, analysis/argument, and conclusion, and provide a comprehensive treatment of a particular area of law. Articles tend to be formal in both the author’s tone and in the obligation to ground information and analysis in comprehensive substantive support via consistent citation.
Essays
Essays tend to address issues of particular interest to the legal academic community and are written with a tone and structure appropriate for a peer audience. Their scope, topics, approaches, and insights are diverse, and there is no “typical” or preferred structure of an Essay. Essays also tend to be shorter than Articles, although they need not be.