Submit to our Print Journal
Submissions for our Spring 2024 journal are due by January 30, 2024 at 11:59PM ET. Apply here!
The Columbia Undergraduate Law Review encourages undergraduate students at universities anywhere in the world to submit articles, research papers, and essays that relate to the field of law. Most of the papers previously published by the journal have stemmed from the fields of political science, history, philosophy, international relations, and legal studies; however, students in any program of study should feel welcome to send us their work as long as it relates to legal issues.
Calls for Submissions are shared here and on our website homepage, as well as on our Social Media accounts via Facebook page and Instagram. On this page, you can find submissions guidelines and a list of prospective author FAQs.
Submission Guidelines
Submissions must be double-spaced in Microsoft Word .doc or .docx format, follow Chicago style citations, and include endnotes and a Works Cited section. Although we do not have strict length limitation, the majority of published pieces range from 15 to 20 pages (excluding references). Longer papers should be shortened to fit this page length recommendation before submission, and excessive length or brevity may affect acceptance.
Note: it is the responsibility of the author to convert footnotes or parenthetical citations to endnotes; failure to do so prior to submission may affect acceptance.
In the document, please also include the following information:
Your name
Current email address and phone number
College/university and year of graduation
Title
250-word abstract
Short explanation of when and why paper was initially written
If you have also submitted your piece to another publication, inform us immediately if you have been selected for publication by their team. We do not republish articles.
Applicants may submit multiple works for consideration.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Below is a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for prospective authors interested in submitting to CULR’s Print Journal. If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out to us at culreboard@columbia.edu, and the Executive Editors of the Print Division and/or other relevant E-Board members will respond with updates.
Who can submit to the Print Journal?
We welcome submissions from undergraduates attending colleges and universities across the world—you do not have to be a Columbia or Barnard student! Note that to publish a standard article in our journal, the author has to have been an undergraduate when they wrote it. We typically do not accept submissions from authors who have graduated more than a year prior to submission.
How often do you publish the Print Journal?
We publish our print journal thrice a semester: regular issues are published at the end of the Fall and Spring semesters, and a special issue is generally published at the end of the Summer, edited by participants in our annual Summer Publishing Program.
How and what do you decide to publish in the Print Journal?
We look to nationally recognized law reviews for guidance on what to publish, but are open to submission that cover a wide range of law-related topics and viewpoints. Some of our submissions are corrective and propose solutions while others are predictive and foresee problems. Some are theory driven while others are more practical. There are many approaches to take, and we welcome well worn as well as innovative paths. However, all of our published papers have had compelling and coherent theses and engaging and substantive arguments. Please take a look at our previous editions to get an idea of what successful submissions have done.
How can I get published or contribute to CULR?
You are welcome to submit an article to our long-form print journal. For updates on when we are open for submissions and how to submit, please visit our Print Submissions page, and check our homepage and social media accounts for Calls for Submissions at the start of each semester and the summer.
Note that we only accept external submissions to our print journal. Our other initiatives (including our Online Journal, Podcast, Roundtable, and Current Events Page) consist of the work of our staff, all of whom are current undergraduates at Columbia University or Barnard College. If you are a current Columbia or Barnard undergraduate and are interested in joining us, please visit our Join page, which has more details.
How long should my print submission be?
We publish papers that are between 12 and 25 pages, not including citations.
Do you accept pitches?
No; we only accept completed papers with full citations. Pitches will not be considered, nor can we give you feedback on a pitch or draft before your final submission.
Can I submit after the deadline?
If you send your submission after the deadline, we cannot guarantee that it will be submitted for consideration by the staff.
I am not a political science/sociology/English/philosophy major, but am still interested in submitting something to the CULR. Is that possible?
Absolutely! Many of our submissions do come from students who have written a thesis or paper for their social science or humanities field. However, some of our strongest and most interesting submissions have come from those with philosophy, economics, or history backgrounds or with diverse interests in fields such as art history or technology. As long as your publication meets the criteria listed on our website, submit it!
Why was my submission rejected?
We reject articles that do not discuss legal related matters, are not written by undergraduates, or otherwise fail to meet our basic criteria. Unfortunately, due to the large number of articles we receive, we also have to reject many submissions every cycle that do fit into the guidelines we set. Submissions that cover topics that seem to have a social science rather than a legal bent, for example, have a more difficult time being accepted in our journal even if they are well written. Generally speaking, we look for quality, relevance, and substance, but believe that there are many paths to creating a successful submission.
Do you give feedback on submissions that were rejected? Are resubmissions allowed?
Due to the volume of submissions received in each cycle, we are unfortunately not able to offer feedback on individual submissions. If you are making a resubmission, we generally encourage you to first revise/modify the argument structure and writing, so that it is not the exact same submission that was previously sent to us.
What goes on behind the scenes in the selection process?
The Editorial Board reads all of the submitted materials and chooses about ten that best fit our mission. The entire staff then votes on four to five submissions from this pool. Next, each accepted submission is assigned to a lead editor and their team, who edit it for content, grammar, and stylistic consistency. Each team works exclusively on one submission, and uses Skype, email, and phone calls to work with the author and ensure that a collaborative and active editing process takes places. Overall, the teams work to preserve as much of the paper as possible, but authors should expect to devote a fair amount of time editing and re-working their papers.
My profile/the length of my submission doesn’t exactly fit into your criteria. However, I have a well-written and relevant submission. Would you be interested in publishing it?
Potentially. We will be offering space for submissions that are outside of what we usually receive. An analysis from a law professor or a short student reflection on a legal internship could be published in our journal. Send us an email about your non-traditional submission and why you think it should be published, and we can go from there.