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Thank you for considering submitting your article to the University of Chicago Law Review. We look forward to reading your work. We would also like to get to know you. If you submit a cover letter, please feel free to put in any information you would like us to know about you, including background information that makes your perspective unique. All cover letters will be kept confidential. We will strongly discount any submissions over 30,000 words. Please see below for our Data Policy for Empirical Papers.
I. Selection Process
We review and accept articles in two cycles during the late winter/early spring and the late summer. Our editors carefully consider every article regardless of when it is submitted, and we encourage all authors to submit their works to us whenever they believe they are suitable for publication.
The Law Review occasionally solicits feedback on submissions from scholars who are expert in their field. Please be aware that this peer review is part of the standard review process that your article may undergo. Before sending an article out for peer review, we remove information that identifies the author, although the reviewer may be familiar with the article if it has been presented at a workshop or conference or circulated online. We never disclose the names of our peer reviewers or share their reviews with the author.
Our editors always seek to review articles within a few weeks after receiving them, but it might take longer to reach a decision when submission volumes are high. If we are unable to extend a publication offer, we will notify the author promptly.
When the Law Review decides to publish an article, we contact the author immediately to extend an offer.
II. Editorial Process
The Law Review is proud to employ a light edit policy. The journal believes strongly that both the argument and the voice of a manuscript should be the creations of the author. Our edits are intended to hone the author’s vision, rather than replace it with our own.
After our first round of substantial editing, we return a redlined copy of the manuscript to the author showing all changes that we have made. Substantial edits are accompanied by substantive comments or questions. Our changes are meant as reasoned suggestions, not editorial edicts, and we will respect the author’s judgment regarding whether the changes should be made.
III. Expedited Review and Withdrawal
Please add an expedite request if you have received an offer of publication from another journal and need us to make a decision by a particular date. The Law Review makes every effort to honor all requests for an expedited review, even if the timeline is very short. We appreciate if you are able to let us know that you have decided to withdraw your article from consideration.
IV. Data Policy for Empirical Papers
It is the policy of the University of Chicago Law Review to publish papers only if the data used in the analysis are clearly and precisely documented and are readily available to any researcher for purposes of replication. Authors of submitted papers that contain empirical work, simulations, or experimental work must provide to the Law Review, upon asking by the editors prior to acceptance for publication, the data, programs, and other details of the computations sufficient to permit replication. Requested exceptions may be granted and will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
At the time of submission: Please indicate in your cover letter if the data used in a paper are proprietary or if, for some other reason, the requirements above cannot be met.
At the time of first level of review: If your paper passes through the first level of review, editors will ask for data and preliminary program files. This information may be anonymously reviewed by professors in the relevant field to assist the Law Review editors in evaluating the paper. Authors whose papers are accepted for publication will have an opportunity to update the information provided prior to publication.
At the time of publication: If the paper is accepted by the Law Review, authors will be expected to publish the appendices containing instructions, the computer programs, configuration files, or scripts used to run the experiment and/or analyze the data, and the raw data on the Harvard Dataverse or the Michigan ICPSR websites when the paper is published.
V. Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us at lrarticles@law.uchicago.edu. Thank you again for considering submitting your piece to the University of Chicago Law Review.