Legal Journals and Periodicals: The Complete Directory

What Is a Law Journal?

A law journal is a periodical that publishes long-form legal scholarship — articles that analyze cases, statutes, doctrines, and legal policy in far more depth than a news story or a treatise chapter. Most are edited by students at a law school and are called law reviews; others are edited by scholars or run by bar associations and professional groups. Because courts and academics cite them, journals are a working part of the legal-research toolkit, not just an academic exercise.

The word “journal” covers a wide range. The flagship review at a law school publishes on any legal subject. A specialty journal at the same school might cover only technology, international, or environmental law. A bar journal keeps practicing lawyers current on their state’s law. And a county legal journal is a very different animal — an official newspaper that prints court calendars and legal notices. This directory maps all of them.

Law Reviews by School

The best-known journals are the flagship law reviews at each accredited law school — the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, and dozens more. Our directory currently profiles 27 flagship reviews plus a set of specialty journals, each with a link to its official site. For how these journals work, how students “get on” law review, and how they are ranked, start with law review rankings and directory and what law review is.

Bar and County Legal Journals

Two other families of publication share the word “journal.” State bar journals are magazines published by state and local bar associations — practical, current-awareness reading for licensed lawyers. County legal journals are official legal newspapers, most prominent in Pennsylvania, that print court dockets, estate notices, and other legal notices the law requires to be published. They look similar on a shelf but serve completely different purposes.

Journals by Subject: Ten Fields

Beyond the general-subject flagships, hundreds of specialty journals focus on a single field. We group them into ten broad areas so you can browse by topic:

The Most-Cited Legal Journals

“Most-cited” is a measurable idea, not a matter of opinion. The Washington & Lee Law Journal Rankings count how often each journal is cited in other journals and in court opinions over a multi-year window, which is why the general flagships at the oldest, largest schools tend to sit near the top. We describe that methodology and link to the source on our law review rankings and directory page rather than reproducing the ranked tables, which are the ranking project’s own work product.

How to Access Journals Free

Most law-review articles are free to read. Individual journals post their content on their own sites; older volumes are collected in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library, which many public and academic libraries provide free to cardholders. Google Scholar and SSRN also host a large share of legal scholarship at no cost. For students and practitioners who want to publish rather than read, see how to get published in a law review. Undergraduates have their own outlets, covered in our undergraduate law journals guide.