As I Lay Writing: How to Write Law Review Articles for Fun and Profit: A Law-and-Economics, Critical, Hermeneutical, Policy Approach and Lots of Other Stuff That Thousands of Readers Will Find Really Interesting and Therefore You Ought to Publish in Your Prestigious, Top-Ten, Totally Excellent Law Review

Authors

C. Steven Bradford, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

1994

Comments

Bradford in Journal of Legal Education 44 (1994). Copyright 1994, Southwestern Law School. Used by permission.

Abstract

You've made it onto a law faculty, and you're wondering what to do. Teaching obviously isn't going to occupy much of your time. You prepare your notes the first year, and you're home free. To fill the gap in your life, why not publish something in a law review?

Publishing an article in a law review is an honor and a privilege. "[L]aw reviews hold a special place of trust and importance in the legal system and in society"; they "play a vital role in the preservation of society." Most important, they make it much easier for a law professor to get tenure. Martin Luther succeeded by posting on doors, but law school tenure committees have higher standards. One must publish and, unless one is the rare law professor capable of writing something worthy of publication, one must rely on the existence of law reviews.

This article is designed to help you fulfill your scholarly duties. In the few pages that follow, I am going to tell you everything you need to know about law review" writing: how to write articles, how to submit articles for publication, how to deal with law reviews, and what to do with your articles after they are published. Right now, you might be writing 98-pound-weakling articles, but when you're finished with this article, you'll be the biggest, baddest legal writer on your block.