Harvard Law Review Harvard Law Review Harvard Law Review

About

The Harvard Law Review is a student-run organization whose primary purpose is to publish a journal of legal scholarship. The Review comes out monthly from November through June and has roughly 2,500 pages per volume. The organization is formally independent of the Harvard Law School. Student editors make all editorial and organizational decisions and, together with a professional business staff of three, carry out day-to-day operations.

Aside from serving as an important academic forum for legal scholarship, the Review has two other goals. First, the journal is designed to be an effective research tool for practicing lawyers and students of the law. Second, it provides opportunities for Review members to develop their own editing and writing skills. Accordingly, each issue contains pieces by student editors as well as outside authors.

The Review publishes articles by professors, judges, and practitioners and solicits reviews of important recent books from recognized experts. All articles — even those by the most respected authorities — are subjected to a rigorous editorial process designed to sharpen and strengthen substance and tone.

Most student writing takes the form of Notes, Recent Cases, and Recent Legislation. Notes are approximately 22 pages and are usually written by third-year students. Recent Cases and Recent Legislation are normally 8 pages and are written mainly by second-year students. Recent Cases are comments on recent decisions by courts other than the U.S. Supreme Court, such as state supreme courts, federal circuit courts, federal district courts, and foreign courts. Recent Legislation look at new statutes at either the state or federal level.

Student-written pieces also appear in the special November and April issues. In addition to the Supreme Court Foreword (usually by a prominent constitutional law scholar), faculty Case Comments, and a compilation of statistics about the Court’s previous Term, the November issue includes about 20 Leading Cases, which are analyses by third-year students of the most important decisions of the previous Supreme Court Term. The April issue features the annual Developments in the Law, an in-depth treatment of an important area of the law prepared by third-year editors of the Review.

All student writing is unsigned. This policy reflects the fact that many members of the Review besides the author make a contribution to each published piece.

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

Board of Editors

Vol. 133 2019-20

  • Akua F. Abu
    Pierre E. Anquetil
    Matthew Arons
    Jordan Peter Ascher
    Julianna Astarita
    Alexandra Avvocato
    Lauren Beck
    Tzivya Beck
    Ameze Belo-Osagie
    Lauren Bilow
    Ahra Cho
    Katherine Cion
    David M. Costigan
    Chloe Cotton
    Raisa M. Cramer
    D Dangaran
    Alyxandra M. Darensbourg
    Anna Dimitrijevic
    Gabriel Z. Doble
    Katherine Drews
    Gavan W. Duffy Gideon
    Zachary R. Edelman
    Niki Edmonds
    Ariel M. Fishman
    Benjamin A. Fleshman
    Chance Michael Fletcher
    Mark C. Gillespie
    Bryna K. Godar
    Alexander Guerin
    Mallika R. Gupta
    Alex Harper
    Benjamin E. Harris
    Tianhao He
    Nicholas T. Hine
    Annie R. Hollister
    Sam Horan
    Aaron Hsu
    Jessica Hui
    Sun Young Hwang
    Aiyanna Isom
    Haylie R. Jacobson
    Nikita Kansra
    Joseph R. Kurtenbach
    Charlotte Lepic
    Anita Y. Liu
    Spencer G. Livingstone
    Laya Maheshwari
    Isabel Marin
    Emily Massey
    Lillian McGuire

  • Zekariah McNeal
    Grace McLaughlin
    R.J. McVeigh
    Vinny X. Mei
    Kelsey A. Miller
    Benjamin M. Miller-Gootnick
    Marcelo M. Bonassa
    Matt Morris
    Aaron Mukerjee
    James Mulhern
    David A. Nabors
    Rajiv Narayan
    Maggie J. Z. Neely
    Lauren L. O'Brien
    Radhe P. Patel
    Caley M. Petrucci
    Norah Rast
    Shaiba Rather
    Alexa Richardson
    Parisa Sadeghi
    Madeleine Salah
    Jenny Samuels
    Michaeljit Sandhu
    Samantha R. Santopoalo
    Erika S. Sato
    Jessica J.W. Sawadogo
    Gavriel A. Schreiber
    Carson J. Scott
    Rachel H. Simon
    Andrew Skaras
    Ross Slaughter
    Andrew W. Smith
    Stephanie Sofer
    Julia A. Solomon-Strauss
    Graham Sternberg
    Joseph S. Tobin
    Michael J. Torcello
    Seanhenry N. VanDyke
    Haihang Wang
    Jenna Welsh
    Avery Wentworth
    Breanna Della Williams
    Andrew Wingens
    Linda Yao
    Yi Yuan
    Nicholas J. Zahorodny
    Quinn Zhang
    Zhuoran Zhong

Business Staff

  • Jennifer Heath

    Technology Operations Manager & Program Administrator

  • Denis O'Brien

    Circulation & Financial Director

  • Judi Silverman

    Bluebook Coordinator

Membership

Membership in the Harvard Law Review is limited to second- and third-year law students who are selected after an annual writing competition. The Review strongly encourages all students to participate in the writing competition. Harvard Law School students who are interested in joining the Review must write the competition at the end of their first year, even if they plan to take time off during law school or are pursuing a joint degree and plan to spend time at another graduate school.

Forty-eight second-year students are invited to join the Review each year. Twenty editors are selected based solely on their competition scores. Seven editors, one from each 1L section, shall be selected based on an equally weighted combination of competition scores and 1L grades. Three editors shall be selected based on an equally weighted combination of competition scores and 1L grades, without regard to section. Eighteen editors shall be selected through a holistic but anonymous review that takes into account all available information. The Review remains strongly committed to a diverse and inclusive membership.

Applicants who wish to make aspects of their identity available through the Law Review's holistic consideration process will have the opportunity to indicate their racial or ethnic identity, physical disability status, gender identity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Applicants also have the option of submitting an expository statement of no more than 150 words that identifies and describes aspects of their background not fully captured by the categories provided on the form. Statements will be considered by the Selection Committee only after grading of the competition has been completed. Statements will remain anonymous and will not be evaluated for quality of writing or editing, nor will they be assigned a numerical score. Applicants are welcome to draft their expository statements before the competition week begins, and the prompt for the 150 word statement is as follows: "You may use the space below to submit a typed expository statement of no more than 150 words that identifies and describes aspects of your identity not fully captured by the categories on the previous page, including but not limited to racial or ethnic identity, socioeconomic background, disability, gender identity, and/or sexual orientation."

The Law Review expects to invite editors to join Volume 134 over the course of several days during the second half of July. Orientation for new editors will begin on July 31.

Writing Competition

The 2019 writing competition will begin on Saturday, May 18, after the completion of 1L final exams, and end on Saturday, May 25.

The competition consists of two parts. The subcite portion of the competition, worth 40% of the competition score, requires students to perform a technical and substantive edit of an excerpt from an unpublished article. The case comment portion of the competition, worth 60% of the competition score, requires students to describe and analyze a recent case.

In the interest of clearing up confusion about the Harvard Law Review and our writing competition, this factsheet notes a couple of the concerns we have heard, along with our responses.

A very small sampling of the different schedules used by current HLR editors in approaching the Competition.

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Competition Tips Session and Subcite Training Session

The General Tips Session was held on Tuesday, April 9 from 4:45 pm - 6:15 pm in Austin Hall North. Click here to access the video recording of the Tips Session and here for the Tips Session slides.

The Subcite Training Session was held on Thursday, April 18th from 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm in Langdell Hall 272. A video recording of the Subcite Training Session is available here. Click here for the Tips Session slides.

Click here to access a Tips Session information packet and practice Subcite.

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Receiving the Harvard Law Review Competition Materials Off Campus

Most entrants pick up and turn in their competitions in person. If you would like to take the competition, but will not be on campus when the competition is distributed on Saturday, May 18, you may request that the competition materials be shipped to you via Federal Express. The cost for the mailing is $45.

In order to have the competition mailed to you, you must complete the FedEx shipping form. The deadline to submit the form is Friday, May 10.

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Housing Extension Request

This HLS Housing form is for students who will be participating in the Harvard Law Review Writing Competition and may need a housing extension. (Please note that participation will be confirmed and verified.) The deadline to submit is Friday, May 3rd at 5pm. If you have questions about the housing extension please contact the HLS Housing Office.

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Information for Transfer Students

Prospective transfer students may take the competition at the same time as Harvard Law School 1Ls. Prospective transfer students are selected on the same blind grading basis as Harvard 1Ls and are eligible for 38 of the spots on the Review (in other words, all spots besides the 10 allotted to Harvard 1Ls for whom first-year grades play a role). Prospective transfer students may submit an anonymized, unofficial transcript when their 1L grades are released if they would like their grades to be considered in the Law Review’s holistic review process. While being selected to join the Review in no way guarantees a transfer applicant admission to Harvard Law School, it is the policy of the Review to inform the admissions office whenever a transfer student successfully gains membership on the Review.

Recognizing that the competition schedule poses unique challenges to prospective transfer applicants, the Review also allows transfer students to take the competition at the end of their 2L year. However, no student may attempt the competition more than once, and this option is only available to transfer students who did not previously take the competition. Like prospective transfer students, rising third-year students may submit their grades, but they will not be eligible for the 10 slots that incorporate first-year grades.

Information for SJD Students

SJD students at Harvard Law School may serve as editors of the Law Review. To join, SJDs take the same writing competition as JD students and are eligible for 38 of the editorial positions (all spots besides those allotted to JD 1Ls for whom first-year grades play a role). SJDs should take the competition only if they are certain they have at least two years remaining in their program of study. Additionally, as with all candidates, SJDs are permitted to participate in the writing competition only once.

Information for Students with Disabilities

The Harvard Law Review provides accommodations on the writing competition to students with documented disabilities on an individual, case-by-case basis. To request an accommodation, please email a completed registration form to Lakshmi Clark-McClendon, Director of Student Affairs in the Dean of Student Office, at lclark@law.harvard.edu. In order to allow sufficient time to review documentation, students must submit their requests no later than April 11 and are encouraged to submit documentation as soon as possible. If students have questions about their accommodation request, they should reach out to Lakshmi.

Decisions to grant reasonable accommodations are made by the Review. The DOS and the Review ensure that the identity of all entrants is preserved; no student on the Review will receive personal identifying information about any student requesting accommodation. The Review strongly encourages all students who need accommodations to participate in the writing competition and to submit their requests to Lakshmi. If students with disabilities have any questions about life on the Review, they are encouraged to reach out to an editor or attend one of our information sessions.

Religious Accommodations

Students with unavoidable religious conflicts during the competition, including those fasting for Ramadan, should email lawrev@law.harvard.edu to request an accommodation.

The Bluebook

The Bluebook is the definitive style guide for legal citation in the United States, compiled by the editors of the Harvard Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal. The Bluebook is available for purchase in hard copy, or online (including a mobile version for the iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch) at www.legalbluebook.com.