Announcement: The Articles Department of the Virginia Law Review will reopen for submissions at the end of August 2026.
The Virginia Law Review offers authors a tradition of excellence and light-edit philosophy. Please note that the Virginia Law Review now accepts submissions exclusively through Scholastica.
The Virginia Law Review publishes eight issues per year: March, April, May, June, September, October, November, and December. We welcome Article submissions from judges, professors, practitioners, and law clerks. We do not, however, consider work written exclusively by current law students (though University of Virginia law students can submit Notes).
Length: We strongly prefer Articles under 25,000 words (including footnotes). We will publish manuscripts over 30,000 words only under exceptional circumstances.
Format: We strongly prefer electronic submissions. Electronic submissions should be sent through Scholastica only.
All submissions must include:
- A cover letter, which should prominently feature the following:
- the title of the manuscript,
- an e-mail address (Note: We will not acknowledge receipt of submissions without an e-mail address),
- a mailing address,
- a daytime telephone number,
- a word count for the manuscript (including footnotes) and a separate word count for the footnotes,
- A brief abstract (under 250 words) on a separate page, and
- A copy of the manuscript.
Submission guidelines for Empirical Articles:
- The Virginia Law Review requires that authors of empirically-based articles to submit any supporting documentation (such as data files and/or result print-outs) to the Virginia Law Review within seven days of accepting an offer to publish. Authors are welcome to submit the data concurrently with their article via Scholastica to assist with the articles review process.
- The Virginia Law Review has a strong preference that such empirical data be publicly available or disclosed on request. This presumption may be waived in extraordinary circumstances.
Resumes and other biographical information are optional.
Timing: The Articles Department not currently accepting submissions. We will re-open for submissions in February 2025. The best times to send Articles are between February and mid-April and between late July and mid-September. We do not actively consider manuscripts over the summer (from late May until mid-July) and will not respond to requests for expedited review during that time.
Expedited Review Process: We consider expedite requests during the school year, but not over the summer. Expedites should be sent through Scholastica only. An expedite request should include: the author’s name, e-mail address, and daytime telephone number; the date by which an answer is required; and the name of the journal that has offered publication. Although we make every effort to review expedited material, we cannot guarantee a reply given the high volume and rapid turnover of submissions.
Artificial Intelligence and the Virginia Law Review’s Tradition of Excellence
The Virginia Law Review has a long tradition of promoting excellence in legal scholarship. Central to this tradition are the originality and human-driven nature of our scholarship. The advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has created challenges for the field of legal scholarship. While we recognize that AI is now part of the academic landscape, we are committed to maintaining the journal’s tradition of publishing rigorous, accurate, and original scholarship.
Artificial Intelligence Disclosure
The Virginia Law Review requires authors to disclose the use of AI upon submitting their article for review. We emphasize that the use of AI is not disqualifying. Disclosure of AI facilitates our ability to thoroughly evaluate a piece, and it promotes trust between the author and the journal.
Authors must complete a Google Form to disclose any substantive use of AI. By “substantive,” we mean the use of AI to support an author’s factual assertions, legal claims, or overall argument, such as generating relevant cases, writing or revising textual sentences, or drafting parentheticals. The use of grammar or spelling assistance services such as Grammarly or spell-checkers is not considered “substantive.”
Authors should err on the side of disclosure. The content selection committee prefers more detailed disclosures that clearly identify where and how authors used AI. The more detailed the disclosure, the more confidently we can extend a publication offer.
Authors must separate their disclosure into the following categories:
- Research:
- E.g., identifying relevant cases and quotations, summarizing relevant secondary sources, summarizing areas of law for background knowledge, generating arguments and counterarguments
- Writing:
- E.g., drafting or revising main body text, drafting footnote text, drafting explanatory parentheticals
- Other:
- E.g., conducting statistical analysis, generating tables/graphs, generating images
Within each category, authors should also indicate what AI tools they used and the extent to which they verified or built upon AI-generated material. Authors may find sample disclosures on the next page.
We reserve the right to rescind an offer for publication if, during the editing process, we discover undisclosed AI usage that compromises the integrity of the piece, including/especially hallucinated sources or quotations. If appropriate, we may also require the disclosure of AI usage in a star footnote.
Sample Disclosures
Research (e.g., identifying relevant cases and quotations, summarizing relevant secondary sources, summarizing areas of law for background knowledge, generating arguments and counterarguments)
- I used Westlaw Deep Research to identify state-level parallels to cases on whistleblower protections. My research assistants and I verified the holdings and quotations for these cases. This research informed the discussion in Section I.C around footnotes 120–25.
- I used ChatGPT to provide background context in admiralty law and to identify helpful historical treatises on the subject. I used this research to write the two paragraphs in Section I.A about 17th-/18th-century developments in commercial law.
Writing (e.g., drafting or revising main body text, drafting footnote text, drafting explanatory parentheticals)
- I used Claude to revise my writing in Part II. I instructed Claude to use a punchy style. I verified that Claude did not change the substantive claims of any AI-revised paragraph.
- I used ChatGPT to generate explanatory parentheticals for the sources in footnotes 200–12. I verified the accuracy of each explanatory parenthetical.
Other (e.g., conducting statistical analysis, generating tables/graphs, generating images)
- I used Claude to analyze my data set (at Appendix A) and test for statistical significance at the 0.05 level; I discuss this analysis in Section IV.A. I then consulted members of the University of Viginia Legal Data Lab to conduct the more complex analysis in Sections IV.B-C.