Submissions

DLJ Volume 74 Print: CLOSED (see below)

 

DLJ Volume 74 Online: CLOSED (see below)

Duke Law Journal Policies

Author Agreements

Article Length

Editing Policy

Open Access Policy

DLJ Print

Submissions

The Duke Law Journal invites submissions of articles and essays making important, original contributions to legal scholarship. Comments, case notes, and book reviews will be considered on a limited basis. The Duke Law Journal does not publish student notes from non-Duke students. Manuscripts should conform to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (21st ed. 2020). Authors are encouraged to also conform to the Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed. 2017). Manuscripts can be submitted through Scholastica or directly to the Duke Law Journal via email during submission periods. Submission periods typically take place February-March. Manuscripts submitted directly to the Duke Law Journal should be accompanied by a cover letter including the author’s name, address, telephone number, electronic mail address, and the title of the manuscript.

As of February 29, 2024, Volume 74 (2024-2025) is no longer accepting print submissions. For more information, please visit https://duke-law-journal.scholasticahq.com/for-authors.

DLJ Online

Submissions

For Duke Law Journal Online Submissions, please email all manuscripts to dlj@law.duke.edu. Submissions do not need to be anonymized. Duke Law Journal Online has a strong preference for pieces under 10,000 words.

The online department will review submissions on a rolling basis throughout the year until all slots for Volume 73 are filled.

As of September 28, 2023, Volume 73 Online is no longer accepting submissions. This page will be updated when the submission window for Fall 2024 publication is open. 

EDITING POLICY

 

The Duke Law Journal has, over time, developed a body of stylistic conventions that we aim to follow whenever possible. We find that most Articles require a modest degree of editing to comply with The Bluebook and the Chicago Manual of Style, but we believe our authors make their arguments most effectively when they speak in their own voice. With this in mind, our editors make every effort to limit proposed changes to those that substantially improve or clarify the author’s argument.

ARTICLE LENGTH

 

The Duke Law Journal has joined with the law reviews at Berkeley, Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, Harvard, Michigan, Stanford, Texas, Penn, Virginia, and Yale in endorsing the following Joint Law Review Statement on Article Length.

Accordingly, DLJ has a strong preference for Articles of fewer than 35,000 words (or roughly 70 law review pages), including footnotes; longer articles will only be published in exceptional circumstances. Shorter essays are welcomed.

Joint Law Review Statement on Article Length

In mid-December [of 2004], the Harvard Law Review conducted a nationwide survey of law faculty regarding the state of legal scholarship. Nearly 800 professors completed the survey and submitted their feedback. Complete tabulations of the survey will soon be available on the web. Importantly,the survey documented one particularly unambiguous view shared by faculty and law review editors alike: the length of articles has become excessive. In fact, nearly 90% of faculty agreed that articles are too long. In addition, dozens of respondents submitted specific comments, identifying the dangers of this trend and calling for action. Survey respondents suggested that shorter articles would enhance the quality of legal scholarship, shorten and improve the editing process, and render articles more effective and easier to read.

The law reviews listed above are very grateful for the constructive feedback and wish to acknowledge a role in contributing to this unfortunate trend in legal scholarship. To the extent that the article selection or editing process encourages the submission and publication of lengthier articles, each of the law reviews listed above is committed to rethinking and modifying its policies as necessary. Indeed, some have already done so. The vast majority of law review articles can effectively convey their arguments within the range of 40-70 law review pages, and any impression that law reviews only publish or strongly prefer lengthier articles should be dispelled. Ultimately, individual law reviews will have to decide for themselves how best to resolve these concerns. Please know, however, that editors across the country are cognizant of the troubling trend toward longer articles and are actively exploring how to address it.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

 

The Duke Law Journal is among the few leading legal journals that make the full content of all articles published in the Journal available free. Our decision to adopt the Open Access Law Principles promulgated by Open Access Law Program gives our authors the ability to reach a worldwide audience and, in concert with other journals adopting the principles, increases the volume of freely available legal scholarship.

In conformity with these Open Access principles, the Duke Law Journal:

  • Offers free access to citable copies of each article published in the Duke Law Journal since 1996—97 in our archives
  • Requires only a limited-term exclusive license for commercial publication
  • Requests that, in the event of reprinting, authors attribute first publication to the Journal
  • Makes a PDF copy of the final article available to the author