Submissions
The Harvard Law Review is currently accepting submissions.
How To Submit
The
Harvard Law Review requests that contributors comply with the following standards:
- Electronic Submission: We strongly encourage contributors to submit their manuscripts through our electronic submission system, preferably in Microsoft Word format. Articles may be submitted to the Harvard Law Review exclusively or through the standard submission protocol. Alternatively, you may still submit a hard copy if you wish; please address all manuscripts to: Articles Office, Harvard Law Review, Gannett House, 1511 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138. Please note that we will not accept articles submitted via email.
- Length Limitations: In an effort to address the growing length of law review articles, the Review has adopted a new policy limiting the length of articles we will accept or publish.
The Review strongly prefers articles under 25,000 words in length — the equivalent of 50 law review pages — including text and footnotes. The Review will not publish articles exceeding 30,000 words — the equivalent of 60 law review pages — except in extraordinary circumstances.
In December 2004, the Harvard Law Review surveyed nearly 800 law professors on the state of student-edited law journals. The results of the survey, which found that nearly ninety percent of respondents believed that law review articles are too long, are available here.
For further background regarding this policy, please see a Joint Statement issued by a number of law journals across the country.
- Anonymous Review: To facilitate our anonymous review process, please confine your name, affiliation, biographical information, and acknowledgments to a separate cover page. Please include the manuscript’s title on the first text page.
- Citation Format: Please use footnotes rather than endnotes. Footnotes should conform to the 18th edition of The Bluebook.
- Expedited Review: If you would like to request an expedited review of your submission and if you have submitted a manuscript, please make the request through our electronic expedited review system. You may also contact us by phone or fax and leave a message. Please be prepared to provide: (1) the manuscript's tracking number; (2) the manuscript's title; (3) the date by which you need an answer; (4) your phone number; and (5) your email address.
Electronic Submission System
Preference for Exclusivity
We strongly recommend that you submit your manuscript to us exclusively. As described in more detail below, our review process is lengthy; unlike many journals, we conduct faculty reviews and a vote of our entire staff before we accept pieces. As a result, we are often unable to make quick decisions when faced with exploding offers from other journals. Accordingly, if your preference is to publish your manuscript in the Review, please consider submitting the manuscript exclusively, at least 10 days before submitting it to other journals.
Authors who choose to give us an exclusive submission should indicate clearly in the cover letter and in our electronic submission system the date that they expect to send the manuscript to other journals. We apply the same standards of review to all submissions, but submitting exclusively makes it more likely that we will have time to put the manuscript through all of our stages.
Review Process
The Harvard Law Review carefully considers all manuscripts that it receives. Our selection process has many steps: each piece is reviewed anonymously, at least two editors review every submission, and many pieces go through substantially more stages of review, including an Articles Committee vote, a preemption check, faculty peer review, and a vote by the body of the Review. Although we make every effort to honor requests for expedited review, we do not omit any of our review stages in response to such requests. When requesting an expedited review, please understand that our selection process takes time.
There is no "best" time to submit a manuscript to the Review. We will never reject an article for lack of space; rather, we will hold it over for consideration for the next volume. While we encourage contributors to submit articles as soon as they are ready,
we do not review articles at all between mid-May and mid-August, so there is no need to rush during this period.
We also review and periodically publish "Essays." A piece will be considered an essay if it is 25 law review pages or less in length, and its primary purpose is to advance an idea, summarize a development, or initiate or engage in discussion. We strongly encourage authors to submit essays for consideration.
We notify authors of our decisions by email.
We normally do not inform authors of the status of their manuscripts other than through email. As a matter of policy, we do not discuss the reasons for our publication decisions.
Thank you for your interest in the Harvard Law Review.
