Student and Undergraduate Law Journals
Not every law journal is run by law students. A growing set of undergraduate journals gives pre-law students a way to write, edit, and get published before law school.
What Undergraduate Law Journals Are
An undergraduate law journal is a student-run publication at a college or university that publishes legal and law-adjacent writing by undergraduates. They sit a step below the law-school law reviews: the writing is scholarly in ambition but pitched at a pre-law audience, covering constitutional questions, legal history, policy, and current legal controversies. For students considering law school, they offer early, hands-on experience with legal research, argument, citation, and the editorial process — and a publication to point to on an application.
The Princeton Legal Journal and Its Essay Contest
The Princeton Legal Journal is a well-known example: an undergraduate-run journal at Princeton University that publishes student legal scholarship and has run an essay competition inviting submissions on legal topics. Contests like it are a common feature of the undergraduate journal world, giving students a concrete deadline, a prompt, and a shot at publication or recognition. Because eligibility rules, prompts, and deadlines change from year to year, anyone interested should check the journal’s own current announcements rather than relying on a secondhand summary.
Directory of Student-Run Journals
Undergraduate law journals now exist at many universities — the Dartmouth Law Journal is another frequently cited title — and new ones appear regularly while others go dormant. Rather than publish a list that would quickly fall out of date, we suggest checking the pre-law or political science department, and any pre-law student organizations, at a given school; those are where an undergraduate journal is typically housed and where its current submission call will be posted. The most reliable source for a journal’s scope and status is always its own site.
How Pre-Law Students Get Published
The most direct path for an undergraduate is the journal at their own school: join the staff, learn the editing process, and work up to writing a note or article. Beyond that, some undergraduate journals accept outside submissions, and essay competitions offer another route. Two habits help most — writing on a genuine, well-defined question rather than a broad survey, and citing carefully, since editors check sources. Undergraduate publishing is a different track from the law-review article market described in how to get published in a law review, but it builds the same skills. Explore the full range of legal periodicals in our legal journals directory.
Journal scopes, contests, and eligibility rules change year to year and vary by school. This is general information, not legal or admissions advice; confirm current details on each journal’s official page.