Stanford Law Review Online submissions should be original pieces of timely legal scholarship written to be accessible to a wide audience. Our general ethics policy also applies to Stanford Law Review Online submissions.

Submission Length

We have a strong preference for submissions less than 4,000 words (including footnotes). Submissions exceeding 10,000 words will be automatically rejected. Essays longer than 4,000 words may be expected to be shortened during the editing process.

Format

Please submit an editable word processing document (.doc, .docx, .rtf, .otf, etc.). PDF submissions will not be accepted.

Style

The submission’s text and citations should conform to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (21st ed. 2020), copyrighted by the Columbia Law Review Association, the Harvard Law Review Association, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal.

We encourage concise and targeted footnoting; an essay of 3,000 words typically has about 30 footnotes. Footnotes are required for (1) direct quotations, language, or ideas from sources; (2) references to primary materials, such as cases, statutes, or news articles; and (3) obscure materials that may be difficult for readers to find. An example of the appropriate level of footnoting can be found here.

Blind Review

It is our policy to apply the same standards of review to all submissions, and to judge pieces based solely on their content. Our review process is fully blind; all voting Online Editors review submissions and select essays without knowledge of the author’s identity, institutional affiliation, or any other biographical information. Only the Online Editor-in-Chief and Online Executive Editor have access to this information.

To preserve the blind review process, all submission files must be anonymized. Before submitting, please remove all identifying information, including the author’s name, institution, and any acknowledgements. Please consult the following links for information on how to remove identifying information, including metadata, from Microsoft Word documents: Word 2007, Word 2010, Word 2013, and Word 2016.

Authors should include their name and identifying information only in the designated fields in the form below and may include them on their cover letter/CV.

Other Issues

Further questions about the submission process should be addressed to Hannah Repke, Online Editor-in-Chief for Volume 78, at online@stanfordlawreview.org.

ONLINE ESSAY SUBMISSION

Online essays can be submitted on the Stanford Law Review Online Scholastica portal – which is distinct from the Article submission portal – or using the form below. Please submit your essay on only one platform.