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About The Journal -> Scholarship

For over a century, The Yale Law Journal has been at the forefront of legal scholarship, sparking conversation and encouraging reflection among scholars and students, as well as practicing lawyers and sitting judges and Justices. The Yale Law Journal offers the following types of scholarship:

Articles and Essays: The division between these two forms of professional scholarship serves not merely to separate longer pieces from shorter ones, but to encourage two distinct and complementary approaches to legal analysis. Both the Articles and Essays Committees review submissions without knowledge of the identity of the authors.

  • Articles typically occupy traditional zones of scholarship and put forth fully developed arguments. They devote substantial space to situating themselves within existing research, and they often frame their arguments as answering and advancing influential works in the field.

  • Essays are narrower in scope than Articles, but the subject matter should be of general scholarly interest. Essays may experiment with style, tone, and voice. The ultimate goal of an Essay is to start a new and interesting scholarly conversation.

Yale Law Journal Online Essays and Responses: YLJ Online pieces are authored by professors, practitioners, and students and are generally shorter, more timely, and accessible to a general audience. Submissions are reviewed by the Yale Law Journal Online Committee without knowledge of authors' identities.

  • YLJ Online Essays are original pieces that bear directly on events unfolding in the present, blending the common appeal of op-eds with the rigor of scholarship.

  • YLJ Online Responses are timely responses to both our print and online content. The goal is for academics, practitioners, and students to use the YLJ Online forum to engage with and challenge one another. The Yale Law Journal Online Committee additionally may solicit responses to print pieces and symposia commentaries.

Book Reviews are thoughtful commentaries by professors and practitioners on forthcoming or recently published books, often using the book as a springboard for new lines of scholarly inquiry. Submissions are reviewed on a blind basis and may be solicited as well.

Notes are publications of substantial length authored by students at the Yale Law School, frequently with the assistance of the Journal’s Notes Development Editors. The Notes Committee selects its pieces through a blind reading process, with Development Editors recused from voting on pieces to which they have contributed. 

Comments are short pieces authored by editors of The Yale Law Journal. Note that as of 10/1/2012, all J.D. students at the Yale Law School are eligible to submit a Comment for consideration. Comments succinctly tackle interesting issues and puzzles in the law, often raising questions to be answered in longer, subsequent pieces. The Comments Committee chooses pieces through a blind reading process, with appropriate recusals during voting.

Through this broad array of publication formats, The Yale Law Journal continues its more than a century of excellence in publishing the finest legal scholarship.