SUBMISSIONS OVERVIEW

The UCLA Law Review publishes articles and student-written comments. Pieces are accepted from any non-student author for consideration as an article, while comment submissions are accepted only from current members of the UCLA School of Law.

Why Publish With the UCLA Law Review?

• The UCLA Law Review is currently the 9th most cited legal periodical in the country.
• Our editorial process enables authors to publish pieces of the highest quality. Each article goes through multiple rounds of substantive and formatting edits. This process is designed to provide authors a comprehensive review of all aspects of their manuscript; however, authors always retain the ability to make final decisions about their work.
• Our members are highly qualified and highly committed. Both staff members and editors are selected on the basis of an anonymous performance-based test, their proven dedication, and their commitment to the excellence of the Law Review.
• The Law Review consistently meets its production deadlines. This means that articles concerning timely issues remain timely.
• The Law Review has access to the Law School’s Empirical Research Group. The ERG is available to review an author’s empirical work should the author express interest in this service.
• The Law Review is committed to selecting cutting-edge scholarship from a wide range of legal fields. Thus, each article we publish will be surrounded by other articles at the forefront of their respective disciplines.

SUBMITTING AN ARTICLE

Slating for Volume 58 is now open. We are also continuing to accept shorter submissions for UCLA Law Review Discourse, our online publication.

Michael Behrens
Chief Articles Editor
UCLA Law Review
Volume 58

The UCLA Law Review will give preference to articles under 25,000 words in length–the equivalent of 50 law review pages–including text and footnotes. We will not publish articles exceeding 35,000 words–the equivalent of 70-75 law review pages–except in extraordinary circumstances.

We prefer submissions via ExpressO. Please note that if you are submitting via ExpressO, we do not send a separate acknowledgement of receipt; the only acknowledgement that your manuscript has been received will come from ExpressO. If you must submit a hard copy, please mail your submission to:

Articles Dept.
UCLA Law Review
UCLA School of Law
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1476

Submissions should be:

• In hard copy (no email submissions, please);
• Type-written;
• On 8 1/2″ x 11″ white paper;
• In footnote format, not endnotes; and
• Bound with a paperclip or binder clip (not stapled or in a folder).

Additionally, they should include the following:

• A table of contents; and
• A current CV
• A cover letter with the author’s name, address, telephone number, and email address.

We do not accept email submissions.

Submissions will not be returned.

The Review Process

The Articles Department makes every attempt to review an article within eight weeks of its receipt. During peak slating seasons (March/April, August), however, the review of an article may take significantly longer.

Expedited Review:
We generally require ten days to complete an expedited review. Please notify the Articles Department by phone at (310) 206-8630 or by email at LRSubmit@lawnet.ucla.edu of your request for an expedited review as soon as possible. In your request, please include the following information:

• Author & co-author’s first and last names.
• Title of the Article.
• Author’s deadline.
• Author’s e-mail address and/or phone number (if leaving a home phone number, please indicate that and how late you can be reached).
• Name of the competing journal.

As soon as the Articles Department receives your request for expedited review, we will let you know whether we are able to accommodate your deadline. If you do not receive verification within 48 hours, the Articles Department probably has not received the request.

The author should expect to hear from the Articles Department no later than the day prior to the deadline for the expedited review. If the author has not heard from the Articles Department by the morning of the deadline date, please contact the Articles Department by phone at (310) 206-8630. If additional time is needed for the review, the Articles Department will notify the author in advance to make arrangements. If the deadline changes, please contact the Articles Department as soon as possible by phone or email.

Withdrawing Your Submission:
The author should notify the Articles Department as soon as possible if he/she is withdrawing an article. The Articles Department appreciates knowing which journal is publishing the article.Top

Offer of Publication

The Chief Articles Editor will contact you by phone and/or email with an offer of publication. Once you accept the UCLA Law Review’s offer, we expect you to withdraw your article from all other law reviews.

Upon acceptance of our offer, an acceptance package including an instruction letter, two licensing agreements for your signature, and a request to forward an electronic copy of your article (preferably in Microsoft Word format) to the Editor-in-Chief.

Authors receive twenty-five free reprints of their article with the price of additional reprints varying based on the length of the article.

For further information on our copyright agreement, please see the Copyright page.

SUBMITTING A COMMENT

The Law Review accepts student papers on a rolling basis. All Comments will be identified using Final Examination Numbers. The Comments Department evaluates student submissions using a variety of criteria, including originality, timeliness, logic of argument, use of authority, and writing style. The standards for selection are high and the Law Review usually only expects to select two submissions for publication per issue. No single student may publish more than two total Comments with the UCLA Law Review.

How to Submit

To submit a paper, you must email one copy of your manuscript to Comments@law.ucla.edu. In your email, please include your:

• full name
• primary email address
• primary telephone number from which you can be reached during the day
• Spring 2009 final exam number

Transfer, Visiting, and LLM students may retrieve an exam number from the Records Office. No member of the UCLA Law Review will have access to this email address, and all information will remain anonymous. The electronic title of your file should read “Comment – [your topic].” For example, “Comment – Freedom of the Press in Murder Trials.” Do NOT identify yourself by name in the title of your file.

The Comments Department will consider all student-written Comments for publication, including those written for an independent study, papers for upper-division seminars, and other works not written for credit. However, the UCLA Law Review does not publish essays, book reviews, response pieces, casenotes, poetry, or other non-academic student-written works. There is no page limit or minimum for consideration. As a guideline, Comments chosen for publication are usually around 20,000 words, including footnotes. Preference will be given to Comments that are 25,000 words or less.

When evaluating work for publication, the Comments Department looks for timeliness, depth of analysis, clear writing style, and use of authority. We encourage students who have not been chosen for publication in other slating cycles to resubmit for consideration.

If you would like to gauge the types of student-written Comments that are accepted for publication, we invite you to refer to past issues of the UCLA Law Review. The Law Library carries past copies on the first floor under call number K25.C55; additionally, Comments appearing in the UCLA Law Review are available on the UCLA Law Review Website (www.uclalawreview.org), Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Hein Online. In order to be eligible for publication, you must be currently enrolled at the UCLA School of Law. Your work must have been written while studying at a law school. Transfer and Visiting Students may submit works written at other schools.

Declaration of Academic Integrity

SUBMITTING FOR DISCOURSE

Discourse publishes shorter response pieces and non-traditional law review articles. Discourse pieces are considered on a rolling basis and, if accepted, have an expedited production schedule. To submit a piece for consideration, please send manuscripts to lrcee@lawnet.ucla.edu.  Please submit a CV along with your manuscript.

Discourse submissions can include:

• Response pieces to Articles previously published in the Law Review
• Op-ed type articles
• Short Essays, between 2,500 and 5,000 words
• Book Reviews

We seek to turn around selected Discourse pieces as quickly as possible.  As such, shorter and lightly footnoted pieces can generally be completed and posted within a few weeks.

Discourse Submission Guidelines

Submissions for Discourse can follow any form or format.  Please follow these guidelines:

• Footnotes must follow the Bluebook citation format.
• Submissions should be no longer than 10,000 words, including footnotes.
• The thesis or mission of  piece should be stated clearly, briefly, and promptly since the main page of Discourse will only display about the first 150 words of a piece.
• A submission should have at most 150 footnotes with one citation per footnote if possible.
• Multiple parallel citations are not encouraged.
• Footnotes should include web links in citations that can be directly linked to sources.
• Avoid extensive text in footnotes.

Discourse Production Process

Discourse pieces undergo two expedited  rounds of editing, as opposed to the normal three that main line Articles receive.  In the Primary Edit, a Discourse Editor preforms a substantive and technical edit, while the staff checks the piece for accuracy and edits the citations.  The author then has the opportunity to accept/reject changes and make any of her own revisions.  Next, the Chief Executive Editor and Chief Managing Editor perform their own edit, and the author then has one final chance to make any last-minute changes.  The piece is then reviewed one final time to catch any remaining mistakes, and then published directly to Discourse.  If at any time the author chooses to waive a round of editing, we can complete the piece and have it posted that much sooner.  The general editing timeframe usually takes about six weeks.