Print Submissions

The Northwestern University Law Review is a student-operated journal that publishes six issues of general legal scholarship each year.

The Law Review considers submissions via four different submissions tracks: (1) a winter exclusive submission cycle; (2) a spring open submission cycle; (3) a fall open submission cycle; and (4) an empirical cycle. Further information regarding the exclusive submission cycles can be found on our exclusive submissions page. Further information regarding the open submission process is below.

For additional information regarding empirical submissions, please see below.

Open Submissions: General Guidelines

How to Submit

Northwestern University Law Review welcomes interested authors to submit their work during August and early February through early April. We do not review submissions during the summer period (late April through July) or the winter period (mid-October through the end of December).

We accept Article and Essay submissions exclusively through our online submission system, Scholastica. We also accept print submissions via email at samy.abdelsalam@law.northwestern.edu. Print submissions are only accepted via postal mail in extenuating circumstances.

If you have any questions regarding print submissions, please contact Samy Abdelsalam, Senior Articles Editor for Volume 119, at samy.abdelsalam@law.northwestern.edu.

Expedited Reviews

Northwestern University Law Review attempts to honor all requests for expedited review if a manuscript has received an offer from another journal. When requesting expedited review, please do so via Scholastica; the system will automatically alert the Articles Board. If the Law Review makes an offer on an expedited manuscript, the author will have a limited amount of time to respond to such an offer.

Submission Length

Northwestern University Law Review has no formal length requirements. However, we support the statement by the editors of several of our peer journals and endorse the position that most articles can effectively convey their arguments within the range of 40 to 70 journal pages. We believe that establishing word limit guidelines will enhance the quality of legal scholarship and improve the editing process. To that end, we strongly prefer Articles between 15,000 and 30,000 words, including footnotes. Only in exceptional circumstances will we publish Articles fewer than 15,000 words or in excess of 30,000 words.

The Law Review also encourages authors to submit Essays, pieces under 10,000 words including footnotes. Essays typically have a more focused purpose—advancing a narrow thesis or contributing to discussion on a current, salient issue. Please submit all Essays under 10,000 words to NULR Online for consideration in our Online publication. Further information regarding NULR Online may be found on our Online submissions page.

Our Submissions Review Process

The Law Review’s Articles Board is responsible for carefully reviewing every submission that we receive and for selecting every Article or Essay that we publish. We have multiple stages of review, but every piece that we accept is reviewed by the entire Articles Board and the Editor-in-Chief.

Beginning with Volume 112, it is the Law Review’s practice to subject submissions under consideration by the full Articles Board to peer review, contingent on selection timeframes and other submissions factors. We have found the peer review process enhances our selection quality and helps to verify piece originality.

Annual Empirical Issue

The Northwestern University Law Review is pleased to announce its seventh annual issue dedicated to empirical legal scholarship, to be published in spring 2025. We welcome pieces making use of any and all empirical tools—including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods—to illuminate and engage questions of legal interest.

Further information regarding the empirical submission process can be found on our empirical submissions page. If you have questions regarding submissions for the empirical issue, you may contact Alisher Juzgenbayev, Senior Empirical Editor for Volume 119, for more information.

General Submissions Policies

These policies apply to both print and NULR Online submissions.

Formatting of Text and Citations

Manuscripts should be double-spaced and use footnotes rather than endnotes. Text and citations should conform to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (21st ed. 2020) and the Texas Law Review Manual on Usage & Style (15th ed. 2020). We also request that authors provide a word count, including footnotes. The Law Review encourages the use of gender-neutral language.

Replication Policy for Empirical Work

The Northwestern University Law Review strongly encourages authors submitting empirical works to make their datasets available and accessible during the selection process in order to allow for complete consideration of their work. Further, the acceptance of any empirical work will be contingent upon the author’s documentation and archival of all datasets in a manner sufficient to allow third parties to replicate the published findings. These datasets will be posted in a publicly available space, such as the Law Review’s website. The Law Review will make narrow exceptions to this policy to the extent necessary to protect privacy or confidentiality.