Submissions

The City University of New York Law Review (CUNYLR), a publication committed to promoting social justice scholarship, welcomes submissions related to our social justice mission. Our journal is affiliated with the City University of New York School of Law, one of the most diverse law schools in the nation and one of the few entirely dedicated to producing public interest lawyers. In addition to publishing articles by legal scholars, we have a special section in each journal dedicated to public interest articles written by practitioners.

Submission Period

Open call for submissions: annually from March to June 1 for the winter issue, and July to October 1 for the summer issue. 

Please send all submissions to cunylr@mail.law.cuny.edu.

Final decisions on all submissions will be made on a rolling basis. For more information, see our Submissions Requirements and Section Descriptions below.

Submissions Requirements

  • Citations: Citations for all articles and essays should conform to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (21st) and appear as footnotes rather than endnotes. Blog citations will be hyperlinked. Citations for Blog submissions must include the full URL in the body of the text, in parentheses.
  • Length: Please adhere to the suggested word account for each section, and we encourage brevity. For all sections of the journal, except for the Blog, CUNYLR accepts essay submissions ranging between 5,000-7,000 words.
  • Format: All submissions must be in Microsoft Word.
  • Abstracts: All abstract submissions must include an expected word count. Authors are encouraged to indicate whether the submission is for Executive Articles, PIPS, Footnote Forum, Notes and Comments or the Blog.
  • Bio or Resume/CV: All submissions must include either a short biography (consisting of a brief list of previously published work) or a resume/CV.
  • Note to Student Authors: We publish analyses of recent court decisions, critiques of legal doctrines, responses to other legal scholarship, and perspective of pressing and emerging social justice legal issues. We highly encourage finalized papers but welcome work in progress that can be finalized by mid-June/mid-October, depending on the issue. 

Section Descriptions and Details

We are currently accepting submissions for all sections of CUNY Law Review: Executive Articles, Public Interest Practitioners Section (PIPS), Footnote Forum, Notes and Comments, and the CUNYLR Blog.

Executive Articles: CUNYLR is dedicated to providing a forum for legal commentary that promotes public interest and social justice; informs the legal community of new developments in public interest law; and provides a forum for practitioners from a wide array of social justice work. Articles should be 25,000 words or fewer (including footnotes).

Public Interest Practitioner Section (PIPS): The PIPS section of the Law Review welcomes submissions from practitioners who are dedicated to working with underrepresented communities. PIPS articles distinguish themselves for their flexibility. Unlike most law review articles, the articles published in PIPS do not require the typical time-consuming tasks such as heavy footnoting or redrafting pieces to meet a considerable length. The purpose of the PIPS section is to provide a space for practitioners to share their thoughts and strategies with other public interest practitioners. CUNYLR accommodates practitioners by providing them with some degree of flexibility so that the collection of articles provides a multifaceted conversation. Practitioner articles may range between 5,000 to 20,000 words (including footnotes).

Footnote Forum: CUNYLR’s Footnote Forum pushes the boundaries of the traditional legal canon by publishing essays, articles, poetry, interviews and other content produced by students, professors, practitioners, policymakers, advocates and other nontraditional authors. The Footnote Forum pieces generally address recent changes to federal or state case law and provide critiques of legislative proposals and legally relevant analyses of current events. Submissions are subject to a limit of 10,000 words (including footnotes).

Notes and Comments: CUNYLR seeks to uplift student authors and welcomes submissions from all law students for the Notes and Comments section. Students are encouraged to see Notes and Comments as a platform to publish their work, along with the Footnote Forum and the Blog!

Blog: CUNYLR’s Blog supplements the print journal and Footnote Forum by publishing short, timely legal pieces related to social justice issues. Interested authors should submit their post or a description of their proposed post with any citations as hyperlinks. Final posts must range between 500-2,500 words. Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis.