Student Scholarship

Law students have the opportunity to pursue scholarly writing as part of the UNM School of Law academic program. The library supports the publication and preservation of student scholarship


Writing Competitions

UNM Law students have many opportunities to hone their writing skills outside of the classroom in a variety of internal and external writing competitions. Notices of competitions are sent to students via email by the Office of Student and Career Services. To identify additional external writing competitions, consult the list of ABA-sponsored competitions or search Google for law student writing competitions, such as the LatCrit Student Scholar Program.

Journal Article Submission

UNM Law students may electronically submit articles to individual or multiple law journals via Scholastica. Students work collaboratively with a UNM Law faculty member to narrow their submission list to no more than ten journals. Submission fees are paid by the School of Law.

  • To set up access to Scholastica, Contact the Library. Include the name of the UNM Law faculty member with whom you are working.
  • To submit an article, see Scholastica's Submission Guide.

Guidance and Submission Policies

To read guidance for law students who wish to publish an academic paper and a listing of law reviews and their policies about student submissions, please see: Nancy Levit et al., Submissions of Law Student Articles for Publication.

For a continuously updated list of publications and all their submission policies, please see: Allen K. Rostron & Nancy Levit, Information for Submitting Articles to Law Reviews & Journals.

Ranking

For a ranking of law journals by citation count, please see the Law Journals: Submissions & Ranking website of the Washington & Lee University Law Library.

Promotion and Preservation

Law Student scholarship may be included in the UNM Digital Repository, if endorsed by a faculty member, thereby earning the imprimatur of the School of Law.

  • The endorsing faculty member must be the same individual for whom the work was created in the first instance. In other words, a faculty member may not endorse work that was initially created under another faculty member’s supervision.
  • Freelance submissions are not eligible for publication under this policy.
  • Works that merit submission will demonstrate significant legal analysis, either building on comprehensive legal research or being a synthesis of information across subject matter lines. While these guidelines are similar to those established for the upper-level writing requirement, this does not mean that other student work will not be considered for Digital Commons, nor does it mean that all upper-level writing requirement papers will automatically be endorsed for worldwide publication in Digital Commons.
  • Submissions are published in the Digital Commons series, "Student Legal Scholarship."

Upon publication, paper descriptions will include the name of the supervising faculty member and the class for which the work was created, if any. Descriptions will carry a disclaimer about the reliability of the paper and the usual cautions about not relying on it for legal advice, and will clearly state that the work has been prepared by a student and has not undergone any type of editing or peer review.

Policies adopted by Faculty Library Committee on February 12, 2008.

On-Site Display

A digital sign shares news of recent student publications. If you have a recently-published item you would like included on the digital sign, please contact the library.