Undergraduate Law Review: A Comprehensive Definition and Exploration

A law review, also known as a law journal, stands as a cornerstone of legal scholarship, serving as a vital platform for the analysis and dissemination of legal thought. These publications delve into a wide array of legal issues, offering in-depth research, critical analysis, and exploration of emerging legal concepts. Law reviews play a crucial role in shaping legal discourse and influencing the development of jurisprudence.

Defining the Law Review

At its core, a law review is a scholarly journal dedicated to the field of law. It functions primarily to publish comprehensive treatments of legal subjects, commonly referred to as "articles." These articles are typically authored by law professors, judges, and legal practitioners, who offer their expertise and insights on complex legal problems and potential solutions.

In addition to articles, law reviews often feature shorter pieces known as "notes" and "comments." These are frequently written by law students who are members of the law review, providing them with an opportunity to engage in scholarly legal analysis and contribute to the broader legal conversation.

Functions and Importance

The primary function of a law review is to publish scholarship in the field of law. Law reviews are a source of research, imbedded with analyzed and referenced legal topics; they also provide a scholarly analysis of emerging legal concepts from various topics. Historically, law review articles have been influential in the development of the law; they have been frequently cited as persuasive authority by courts. Law reviews can provide insight and ideas that contribute to the bedrock of jurisprudence. For example, Justice Stanley Mosk of the Supreme Court of California admitted that he got the idea for market share liability from the Fordham Law Review comment cited extensively in the court's landmark decision in Sindell v.

Law review articles often express the thinking of specialists or experts with regard to problems, in a legal setting, with potential solutions to those problems. These articles often express the thinking of specialists or experts with regard to problems, in a legal setting, with potential solutions to those problems.

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Structure and Organization

Law reviews in the United States and Canada are unique in that they are typically housed at individual law schools and edited by students, not professional scholars. North American law schools usually have flagship law reviews and several secondary journals dedicated to specific topics. For example, Harvard Law School's flagship journal is the Harvard Law Review, and it has 16 other secondary journals such as the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology and the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.

Membership and Editorial Roles

Membership and editorial positions on law journals, especially flagship law reviews, is competitive and traditionally confers honor and prestige. In the US, law reviews are normally edited and published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association, in close collaboration with faculty members.

The paths to membership vary from law school to law school, and also from journal to journal, but generally contain a few of the same basic elements. Most law reviews select members after their first year of studies either through a writing competition (often referred to as "writing on" to the law review), their first-year grades (referred to as "grading on" to the law review) or some combination thereof. A number of schools will also grant membership to students who independently submit a publishable article.

A law review's membership is normally divided into staff members and editors. On most law reviews, all 2Ls (second-year students) are staff members while some or all 3Ls (third-year students) serve as editors. 3Ls also typically fill the senior editorial staff positions, including senior articles editor, senior note & comment editor, senior managing editor, and the most prestigious of all, editor-in-chief of the law review.

As members, students are normally expected to edit and cite-check the articles that are being published by the law review, ensuring that references support what the author claims they support and that footnotes are in proper Bluebook format, depending on the publication's preference. The editorial staff is normally responsible for reviewing and selecting articles for publication, managing the editing process, and assisting members in writing their notes and comments.

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The Write-On Competition

In the United States, law reviews are typically edited by students who are selected to join after successfully completing a "write on competition" at the end of their first year of law school. Grades and class standing are often considered during the application process. The write-on competition usually requires applicants to compose a written analysis of a specific legal topic, often a recent Supreme Court decision. The written submissions are often of a set length, and applicants are sometimes provided with some or all of the background research. Submissions normally are graded blindly, with submissions identified only by a number which the graders will not be able to connect to a particular applicant.

Diversity Considerations

Some law reviews also consider race, gender, and other demographic characteristics of all or a portion of prospective editors in order to increase the diversity of the journal’s membership.

A Global Perspective

Law reviews are not limited to the United States and Canada. They are generated in almost all law bodies/institutions worldwide. Several countries across the globe have their own versions of law reviews, often with unique characteristics and organizational structures.

Canada: The fully student-run law reviews (without a Faculty editor-in-chief) include, in order of the frequency they are cited by the Supreme Court of Canada: the McGill Law Journal, the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, the Queen's Law Journal, the Alberta Law Review, University of British Columbia Law Review, the University of Ottawa Law Review, the Saskatchewan Law Review, and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review.
Belgium: The oldest and most prominent student-edited law review is Jura Falconis. It was founded by a group of students from the Law Faculty of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven who, in 1964, conceived the idea of producing their own law journal grafted on the famous American law reviews.
Italy: Bocconi Legal Papers is a student-edited law journal. The University of Bologna Law Review is a student-run law journal published by the Department of Legal Studies of the University of Bologna, and officially sponsored by Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP and the International Chamber of Commerce - Italy. Its editorial board is composed of more than 150 members, including students, scholars, and professionals from all over the world. The Trento Student Law Review is a student-run law review based in Trento, Italy.
Netherlands: Ars Aequi is one of the few general legal journals. It has been published since 1951. It is edited by students from all faculties of law of Dutch universities, who review and edit submitted articles (peer review is not common in Dutch law journals). The quality of its publications is considered top-ranked in the Dutch legal discipline. Ars Aequi publishes articles written by established scholars, researchers and students. Ars Aequi has published its Black Issue in 1970, criticizing legal aid.
Iceland: Úlfljótur Law Review, has been in publication since 1947. Since its creation in 1947 it has been edited and run by students at the Department of Law, University of Iceland.
Finland: Helsinki Law Review, edited by students at the University of Helsinki, has been active since 2007. The Review is published twice a year. The Review is prepared to publish articles and other contributions in Finnish, Swedish, and English. Helsinki Law Review is supervised and counselled by an Academic Council that consists of a number of senior academic staff members in the University of Helsinki Faculty of Law. Each article is evaluated anonymously by two referees chosen among academic professionals.
Sweden: Sweden's first law review is Juridisk Publikation. The first number of Juridisk Publikation was published in April 2009. It originated as a review by students from Stockholm University. It is now delivered to Swedish law students from all universities, as well as to most legal libraries in the country. Juridisk Publikation is edited by top students from the law schools in Lund, Stockholm Uppsala, Gothenborg and Umeå.
Norway: The first student edited law review Jussens Venner was founded in 1952 by students Carsten Smith and Torkel Opsahl (both of whom later became distinguished academics). Occasionally it features peer-reviewed articles, but its editors are composed of one student from the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo and one student from the Faculty of Law at the University of Bergen.
United Kingdom: Within the United Kingdom, as in much of the Commonwealth outside North America (a notable exception being Australia), all of the leading law reviews are edited and run by academics.
Argentina: In spite of some few exceptions, in Argentina almost all law reviews are run by publishing houses or law professors. In both cases, the involvement of students in the day to day creation of these reviews is fully narrowed.
Australia: As of 2017, the leading student-edited peer-reviewed academic law reviews are the Melbourne University Law Review, Melbourne Journal of International Law, University of New South Wales Law Journal, and Monash University Law Review. The Melbourne University Law Review generally outperforms Sydney Law Review on reputation, impact, citation in journal and cases and combined rankings.
Brazil: Law reviews are usually run by academics as well, but there are efforts by students to change this; for example: University of Brasilia Law Students Review (re-established in 2007), the Review of the Academic Center Afonso Pena from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (published since 1996), and the Alethes Periodic from Federal University of Juiz de Fora.
Ecuador: RUPTURA, is the law review of the Law School Association of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador. This law review is edited by students who maintain an annual publication standard.

The Rise of Undergraduate Law Reviews

While law reviews have traditionally been associated with law schools, a growing trend is the emergence of undergraduate law reviews. These journals provide a platform for undergraduate students to engage in legal scholarship and contribute to legal discourse.

Columbia Undergraduate Law Review

The Columbia Undergraduate Law Review (CULR) is a journal of legal scholarship published by undergraduates at Columbia University. The CULR welcomes submissions from undergraduates attending colleges and universities across the nation. To publish a standard article in their journal, the author has to have been an undergraduate when he or she wrote it. The CULR is open to submission that cover a wide range of law-related topics and viewpoints. Some of their 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 they welcome well worn as well as innovative paths. However, all of their published papers have had compelling and coherent theses and engaging and substantive arguments.

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UCSD Undergraduate Law Review

Volume II of the Undergraduate Law Review at UC San Diego includes articles such as:

The Wrongful Arrest Theory: Justice For Individuals With Diabetes In Criminal Law Procedure
HIPAA: A Demand to Modernize Health Legislation
Inconsistent Solutions Don’t Fix Persistent Problems: How Affirmative and Enthusiastic Consent Undermine Consent Laws Within Universities
Balancing Acts: Navigating the Ethical and Legal Challenges of Genomic Medicine in Healthcare
The Legal Landscape of Healthcare Access in Rural America
The House of Representatives Needs to Expand
Opposite Ends: Why the United States and Singapore have Drastically Different Models of Free Speech
Book Censorship in Public Schools: Examining Florida HB 1467 (2022)
Supreme Court’s Departures from Precedent

Volume 3, Issue 1, 2025 of the UCSD Undergraduate Law Review includes articles such as:

Facial Recognition in Policing: How Algorithmic Bias Targets People of Color
Enhancing Fund Governance to Combat Greenwashing in ESG Securities under Delaware Law
Analyzing Accountability: Examining the Domestic and International Redress Measures for War on Terror Detainees
Weak Enforcement, Flawed Procedure, Dangerous Precedent: Analyzing the Effectiveness of International Law Through the Lens of the South China Sea Dispute
Equal Protections in the Age of AI: Navigating Civil Rights in Housing with Machine Learning
Constitutional Boundaries: The Endurance of Birthright Citizenship and the Future of US-born Children of Undocumented Immigrants
Playing by the Volcker Rule: How Deregulation Threatens the Firewall Between Banks and Risk
Challenging the Constitutionality of the Zero-Tolerance Policy on Immigration
Overfitting and Copyright Infringement: How Should Copyright Law Address the Italian Plumber Problem?
Redefining Rights: The Case For Limited AI Legal Personhood in Intellectual Property and Genetic Engineering

Tufts Undergraduate Law Review

The Tufts Undergraduate Law Review, the only of its kind on Tufts’ campus, will publish its first edition in April. The Tufts Undergraduate Law Review recently solicited submissions through an online form, with applications to be a staff writer and editor opening again in the fall semester. The journal is open to any and all submissions relating to the field of law.

Accessing Law Review Content

Online legal research providers such as Westlaw and LexisNexis give users access to the complete text of most law reviews published beginning from the late 1980s.

Historical Context

English and US law education in the early 19th century was dominated by the study of "discursive" treatises which examined older English case law. By the 1850s a number of legal periodicals had arisen in the US which "typically highlighted recent court decisions, local news, and editorial comments". One of these periodicals, the American Law Register, was founded in 1852 and has been published continually since. By the 1870s, these early commercial legal periodicals established the format for a more "modern style of legal writing" and led to today's student-edited law reviews.

The first student-edited law periodical in the US was the Albany Law School Journal, founded in 1875. The Columbia Jurist was created by students in 1885 but ceased publication in 1887. Despite its short lifespan, the Jurist is credited with inspiring creation of the Harvard Law Review, first published in 1887.

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