Methodological advice about writing your papers.

How and Why to Publish Articles about the Law
Eric Engle
Lawyers have a responsibility to work for the general public good (pro bono publico). The law is constantly evolving. The evolution of law occurs in part through legal commentary. Furthermore, legal scholarship is a source of international law and persuasive evidence of the law in most civilianist legal systems. Finally, publishing your work is a professional credential. It is a way to make your mark on the law. A way to attract attention to your practice.

1. How to Write Your Article: Structure and Discipline.
Good writing is a discipline. The law review article seeks to present and prove a thesis. This requires a clear cogent thesis statement. It also requires a structured argument to support the thesis. This structure will normally be an outline which will be reflected in the table of contents of the article. The article’s points of law, especially those which are controversial, must be footnoted. Footnotes, whether to legislation, cases, or commentary are the scientific foundation of your work. And this is the basic process of writing. First, develop a thesis statement. This is your hypothesis. Then, research the law, to find and form the footnotes you will use. You may then modify your hypothesis which now becomes your thesis statement. You then form an outline of the structured arguments you will use to prove your thesis. You then place the tentative footnotes into the outline. Essentially, one writes the article into the outline, around the footnotes to prove the thesis statement. Footnotes should be formed according to the ALWD, the Blue Book, or the Oscola style.
This process of writing may seem simple. However, writing takes discipline. Finding and forming footnotes is indispensable. As to one’s own writing: edit! edit! edit! edit! Outline ten times, write once. But then, reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. Editing seeks to express ideas clearly and quickly. The reader should consult style guides like Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. Canons like: “Omit needless words.” “Avoid the passive voice.” “Use short sentences.” should be burnt in every writers brain. Good writers use literary devices. However, literary devices are not necessary and may detract from your writing if badly used.
After you have written your article you should show it to your friends. They may point out things that seem clear to you which might not be clear to another reader.
2. Submitting Your Monsterpiece?
It Better Be a Masterpiece! No One Has Time to Waste!
Once you’ve written your article you must submit it for publication. Just like there’s a method for writing, there is also a method for publishing.
First, you need to figure out where you want to submit to. There are two types of journals. Some journals, usually better ranked European ones, insist on “exclusive submission”. They only consider your article if you promise not to submit it elsewhere while they consider it. They usually take about two months to review your article. They may reject your article outright, or will return it with comments and ask for revisions and resubmission.
U.S. journals are generally not exclusive submit. That means your article can be under consideration at more than one law review at a time. However U.S. law reviews have two submission seasons. September and March. I mass submit at those times and then individual submit in the other months.
When you feel your paper is “as good as you can make it” you must send it to journals. Your cover letter may well be the only thing the journal actually reads. In fact, the subject line of your email may be the only thing the journal reads. It has to be perfect. A good subject line might be: SUBMISSION – “The Law and Economics of Mergers and Acquisitions in Russia”. The journal knows this is a submission, and even knows the title of your article. Your title, just like the subject line of that email, must be perfect.
I repeat the TITLE of your article is the ONLY thing you are sure your reader will read. It has to be perfect. Likewise, your first paragraph must also be perfect for the same reason. You should focus especially on the first three pages and last page of your article. It must be *perfect*.
You also need a cover letter. Your cover letter should describe who you are, and what you want. You are a lawyer. You want to publish your article about ___. Be friendly and courteous to your editors. Be clear that you will be happy to edit your article and that you will provide footnotes, substantive or stylistic editing as the editors require.
Your cover letter should include an *abstract* of the article. An abstract presents a summary of the article. Your cover letter should also include your c.v. Include your c.v. and abstract both inline and as an attachment.
Essentially editors have little time and no interest to edit your half-done work. You should be sending them an article “ready to be published” — not something half baked. And your cover letter should look perfectly professional — because that is all they may bother to look at.
3. Where to Send your Article
There are numerous lists of email addresses for submission. See, e.g.,
LexOpus — free online submission manager.
(for preprints and working papers)
Some of the law reviews which are not listed on lexopus, but addresses may be out of date.
Like you can see there are literally hundreds of law reviews. Select those journals most relevant for your article.
4. Publication offer! Then What?
Your publisher will make a publication offer and may ask you to sign a contract giving them copyright. You should have no illusions about making money from writing about law. However you should insist on keeping the right to reproduce your article after an embargo of a year for the academic publishers. Kluwer, Springer and similar for-profit publishers will insist on a permanent embargo. They are reputable enough you should publish with them anyway. If you really hate a term in the contract you can try to negotiate it: “I’m ok giving you exclusive copyright for an embargo of 1 year, but want the right to republish it myself in the book I am planning” – for example.
When your article gets offered publication you should in my opinion simply accept and then go write something else. But you should also write all the other journals you asked to look at your work and tell them that your article is off the market. Some authors try to “expedite” their article to get it placed in a better ranked journal. I find that unseemly. I like having a good reputation, but then I write and publish very often.
If you wish to try to figure out how to “expedite” your article ask Professor Google 😉
In all events love whatever you write and
Good luck!
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Suggested methodologies: 

1) Problématique: The student must begin with a question which they seek to answer. The research then answers the question and/or leads to other questions… Better for an academic setting than practice but a veryuseful perspective nonetheless. 
2) Case history: The student takes a case which they are interested in and traces the cases history and development. This is very straightforward but produces a useful product especially for legal practitioners. 
3) Comparative approach: The student takes a legal concept which interests them, and traces the concepts development in two different countries. Ideally the student then synthesizes and concludes what would be a better system than either. Can be good for practice and is good for academic work. Done properly it is very scientific. Done poorly it is wishy-washy. 
4) Critique: The student analyses a given law: to determine its weak points. A good method for cynics and nihilists: Rather than seeking to prove something this method seeks to disprove another thing. 
5) Polemic: This is the opposite of problématique. Rather than seeking to answer a question the student seeks to prove a hypothesis. This is better for practice than academics since polemical work tends to be less objective but polemic teaches students to organize and direct their thoughts. On the other hand if legal science is a science then it posits facts about law – so polemic has always been able to claim to be scientific – at least in its better forms… 

Naturally students may mix these methods. They are in all events only “suggested approaches”.