Alabama Law Review

SUBMISSION POLICY

Thank you for your interest in the Alabama Law Review. The Alabama Law Review publishes four issues per academic year. We invite submissions of unsolicited manuscripts from judges, members of the legal academy, and legal practitioners. We do not consider submissions from current law students, other than those who attend the University of Alabama School of Law. All manuscripts must be submitted via Scholastica. Please review our submissions policies below.

REVIEW PROCESS

While submissions may be made at any time, our main review period is from February-April. Sometimes, we elect to reserve space to fill throughout the summer and fall.

Each submission is reviewed first by our Acquisitions Editors and the Acquisitions Committee. In making selections, these editors will consider a variety of factors, including the general quality of the writing and scholarship, the author’s previous scholarly contributions, and any political or legal relevance of the article’s thesis.

Please note that the Alabama Law Review receives and reviews over 2,000 submissions each year. Consequently, while each submission is given a fair and equitable initial review, the staff is unable to personally respond to each author. Authors should assume that members of our staff will contact them if their piece is pending for further review. We value our authors and appreciate your interest in the Alabama Law Review and guarantee that each piece will be given proper review.

MANUSCRIPT GUIDELINES

We strongly prefer manuscripts under 30,000 words (including footnotes). Manuscripts under 15,000 words will be reviewed as essays. Unsolicited book reviews are also welcome, and these are typically run at 5,000 words maximum (including footnotes).

The Alabama Law Review generally conforms to the formatting and notation conventions set forth in The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (22d ed. 2025) and the style conventions of The Texas Law Review Manual on Usage & Style (16th ed. 2024).

REQUESTS FOR EXPEDITED REVIEW

We consider expedited requests throughout the year. Requests for an expedited review should be sent via Scholastica. The request should include the author’s name, e-mail address, telephone number, names of the journal or journals that have offered publication, and the expiration dates of those offers. Requests for a review with a deadline of 72 hours or less may not be considered. Please see above for our policy concerning contact with authors.