Organization & History

The Harvard Law Review is a student-run organization whose primary purpose is to publish a journal of legal scholarship. In addition, the Review aims to be an effective research tool for practicing lawyers and students, and to provide opportunities for its student members to develop their own editing and writing skills. The organization is independent of the Harvard Law School; student editors make all editorial and organizational decisions and, together with a professional business staff, carry out day-to-day operations. Its members are second- and third-year Harvard Law students who are selected after an annual writing competition.

The Review is published monthly from November through June, including a special Supreme Court issue each November and a Developments in the Law issue each April. The Review publishes articles, essays, and book reviews by outside authors — academics as well as judges and practitioners — alongside pieces by student editors, including Notes as well as comments on recent cases, legislation, and other legal developments. All pieces undergo a rigorous editorial process, and all student writing is unsigned. Authors interested in publishing in the Review are invited to submit manuscripts for consideration.

For more information about the history of the Harvard Law Review, see Erwin Griswold’s Glimpses of Its History (published in the 1987 Centennial Album of the Review).

The Bluebook

Along with editors of the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and The Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review editors compile The Bluebook, the definitive style guide for legal citation in the United States.