Student Scholarship

The staff of the Law Library created this guide for the purpose of gathering together the information students need for researching, writing and publishing a scholarly article. For a brief overview of how to get an article published, see the tab entitled "Submitting an Article." It covers article submission guidelines, directories of law reviews, articles that rank law reviews, and other related information. In many cases these sources will be enough to get the publication process started, however, additional questions about the nuts and bolts of the writing and publishing process might be answered by the information provided in this Guide. 

Students writing for either the Catholic University Law Review or the Catholic University Journal of Law & Technology should also consult our Library Guide for Journal Staff below.

The Student Scholar Series was founded by Clinical Professor of Law A.G. Harmon in 2009. It was established in order to recognize notable legal scholarship produced by students during the academic year and to foster the practical skills associated with presenting and defending that scholarship in a professional conference-style setting.

The link below is to the repository for past Student Scholar Series presentations, including the videos and summaries of each presentation.

Selecting a topic to write about is a challenging and potentially frustrating process.  However, there are a number of resources that can assist you in this process, a couple of which are outlined below.  A useful starting point is chapter 2 of Scholarly Writing for Law Students (included in the list of useful books to the right).  

Circuit Splits often provide an excellent source of information for writing case notes. In addition to following Circuit Splits, it can also be useful to follow developments in the U.S. Supreme Court.  Perhaps the most up to date resource for this is actually a blog, SCOTUSBlog (link below).  This blog closely follows all developments at the nation's highest court and includes full-text copies of most of the filings for accepted cases.

Ultimately, no matter which topic you select, be sure that you are interested in the topic.  Over the course of the academic year you could potentially be spending a lot of time not just researching and writing the note/comment, but also editing it ready for publication.

To keep up-to-date while you research and write, you can subscribe to the weekly topical "e-journals" of SSRN, or the alert services of Westlaw Precision and Lexis+. Please contact a reference librarian to get started with any of these services.