The Virginia Law Review Online is currently accepting submissions. We look forward to reviewing your pieces. We welcome submissions presenting novel legal arguments, including case comments and response pieces.
Eligibility Requirements: The Virginia Law Review Online accepts submissions from:
- Professors or practitioners
- Current J.D. candidates at the University of Virginia School of Law and graduates within twelve months of earning their J.D. from the University of Virginia
Professor & Practitioner Submission Guidelines
Submission Details: Submissions should be sent through Scholastica only.
Publication Timeline: Submissions selected for publication will undergo an expedited editing process.
Length: Pieces published in VLR Online are lightly footnoted and generally between 6,000 to 9,000 words in length. VLR Online does not have a maximum word limit. However, pieces longer than 10,000 words will only be accepted in exceptional circumstances.
Font and Style: Please use double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font for the body of your submission. Please use single-spaced footnotes rather than endnotes for citations and references. Please use Bluebook style for your footnotes, rather than any other style guide.
Expedited Review Process: 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.
Student Submission Guidelines
Submission Details: Submissions must be emailed to valawrev.online@gmail.com in .docx format.
Length: Pieces published in VLR Online are lightly footnoted and generally between 6,000 to 9,000 words in length. VLR Online does not have a maximum word limit. However, pieces longer than 10,000 words will only be accepted in exceptional circumstances.
Font and Style: Please use double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font for the body of your submission. Please use single-spaced footnotes rather than endnotes for citations and references. Please use Bluebook style for your footnotes, rather than any other style guide.
Cover Page: The document must include a cover page with the title of the piece, an abstract of 250 words or less, a table of contents, and a word count for the piece, both with and without footnotes.
Removing Identifying Information: Any identifying information must be removed from the body of the document as well as the personal information embedded in the digital file by following the instructions below. This includes removing identifying information typically included at the beginning of a Note in a * footnote, such as class information, Online Advisors, or professors that assisted in the drafting and editing of the piece. Correctly following all instructions will maintain each author’s anonymity.
Confidential Form: All submissions must include a separate document with the following information, which is to be emailed to valawrev.online@gmail.com in .pdf format. The PDF should be titled “[Piece Title].Confidential”. This separate document should be a single page and include:
- Your name, phone number, e-mail address, and mailing address
- The title of your submission
- A signed statement (an electronic signature will be accepted) that your piece was substantially written during law school
- The name(s) of any professor(s) with whom you worked when writing your piece
Publication: Students whose pieces are accepted for publication before March 1 of their final year of law school will be extended invitations to join the Virginia Law Review. To be considered, the deadline for submission of such pieces is February 20, 2026, at 11:59pm.
Student Advising: The Law Review offers advising to all students who are interested in submitting an online piece for publication, whether or not those students are current members of the Law Review. Student advisors are available to answer questions about the submission process and meet with students at any stage of the writing process (selecting a topic, reviewing an existing draft, etc.). However, pursuant to the University of Virginia’s Honor Code, we are unable to give substantive advice on any paper that will be submitted for a grade until the student has turned it in to his or her professor. Students interested in receiving advising may fill out this form and will be contacted promptly by an advisor. For further information and guidance for students, please refer to the Student Scholarship Manual here.
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.
Please contact the Online Development Editor, Madeline Kahl (umt9kx@virginia.edu), with any questions.