Authors may submit articles to be considered for the print version of the NYU Review of Law & Social Change or Social Change’s online-only publication, The Harbinger.

Why Publish in Social Change?

The premier progressive legal journal

Social Change is the premier progressive legal journal in the country and publishes legal scholarship that responds to the injustices suffered by those relegated to society’s margins and promotes creative legal solutions to domestic social problems. Social Change has been the Washington & Lee top-ranked journal for “minority, race, and ethnic issues” in every year since 2010.

Seen, read, and cited by the practitioners and scholars who matter most

Social Change scholarship is seen, read and cited by the practitioners and scholars in the field who matter most. Our articles are also frequently cited by judges: in the past three years alone, Social Change articles have been cited by the Supreme Courts of Iowa (in three separate cases), Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, and Washington, as well as by the Third, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. We have been cited several times by the Supreme Court of the United States. Moreover, practitioners come to rely on Social Change when thinking about how to develop and test new legal theories in the fight for social justice.

Selective and personalized editorial process

Social Change‘s article acceptance rate is 4%, and we believe in supporting the unique arguments in each piece we do select. Unlike most law reviews, each article accepted by Social Change requires support from a cross-section of our membership. And if accepted, Social Change provides a personalized, efficient and meaningful editorial experience. A team of three editors, a Senior Articles Editor, Executive Editor and Editor-in-Chief, are assigned to each article and work to ensure that the editorial process is thorough, efficient and effective.

Promotion and dialogue

Publishing with Social Change assure that scholarship resides prominently in the canon of social justice legal scholarship. Articles will appear on Lexis Nexis and Westlaw, be posted on our website, www.socialchangenyu.com, and advertised through social media. Additionally, Social Change solicits responses from other scholars and practitioners to post in our online publication, The Harbinger, to foster dialogue around Social Change articles and increase visibility.

Social Change Criteria for Publication

Law review papers published by the NYU Review of Law & Social Change:

Respond to the injustices suffered by those relegated to society’s margins.

Social Change scholarship responds to the injustices suffered by those relegated to society’s margins, seeks to eliminate inequalities and correct injustices, or considers the relationship between the law and individuals’ lived experiences.

Promote creative legal solutions to social problems.

Social Change scholarship is page-to-practice by providing discrete recommendations for legal practitioners, novel theoretical approaches to intractable legal problems, or concrete policy suggestions.

Elevate voices traditionally underrepresented in legal academia.

Social Change seeks to ensure a diversity in backgrounds of the authors that we publish, with a particular focus on elevating the voices of authors traditionally underrepresented in legal academia.

Additional criteria

Additionally, the NYU Review of Law & Social Change requires that scholarship:

• Is legal scholarship, not research surveys, book reviews, or purely historical articles.
• Is at least 6,000 words long excluding footnotes. (If fewer, see The Harbinger).
• Adheres to A Uniform System of Citation (21st ed. 2020) (“The Bluebook”) and for any matters not addressed by The Bluebook, please refer to The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed. 2010).
• Make publicly available all underlying data and/or code used in any empirical analysis, in accordance with RLSC’s commitment to the Joint Law Review Statement on Data and Code Transparency. (Note: Implementation of this policy began with acceptance of articles for Vol. 47, No. 3. Underlying code and data used in articles published in prior issues may not be publicly available.)

Electronic Submissions

You may submit articles to Social Change for consideration through the express online delivery system: Scholastica. For authors who do not have access to Scholastica, please submit articles in Microsoft Word or PDF format and email them to nyu.rlsc.submissions@gmail.com.

Expedited Review

If you have received an offer of publication from another journal and would like Social Change to expedite review of your article, please email We will try to get back to you within one to two weeks.

The Harbinger

The Harbinger is dedicated to providing timely, approachable and high quality content related to the law and social issues. We strive to bring diverse and critical voices to the fore through swift online publication. Our selection criteria are less rigid than those of traditional legal scholarship. This allows us to publish a range of content—such as commentary, interviews, and narratives—in addition to academic work that is shorter than would be appropriate for the pages of a traditional law review.

In choosing what we publish, we value:

• Accessible language and clarity in organization
• An engaging approach to an important issue
• Relevance to current events
• Diversity in author background
• Compelling and original arguments about law and social issues

Submissions should be between 500 and 6,000 words and, where appropriate, use the rules for text and citation set out in A Uniform System of Citation (21st ed. 2020) (“The Bluebook”). For stylistic matters not addressed by The Bluebook, please refer to The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed. 2010). One exception is that, whenever possible, authors should include a link to a stable online version of cited materials according to Rule 18.2 of The Bluebook.

Submissions to The Harbinger can also be submitted on Scholastica or emailed to law.rlsc.dee@nyu.edu accompanied by your CV or resume.

Citations

The preferred citations for each publication are, e.g.:
– 45 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 1
– 45 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change Harbinger 1

Style Guide

The Style Guide is a resource that outlines definitions and information about diverse communities in an effort to guide editors and authors of legal scholarship in the use of language. Our main goal is to ensure that N.Y.U Review of Law & Social Change (RLSC)—and any journal that utilizes this resource—does not engage in erasure or complicity with bigotry, oppression, or hate. This guide is meant to flag terms that communities have described as harmful to them and offer alternative solutions.

Author Name Change Policy

RLSC has a policy of updating an author’s name at the request of the author. If you published an article with RLSC and would like the name listed on the article to be updated, please email both the Community Education & Accessibility Coordinator (law.rlsc.ceac@nyu.edu) and the Digital Media Editor (law.rlsc.dme@nyu.edu). If you wish for the name originally associated with the article to be included in a footnote, please include such instructions in your email to the CEAC and DME. Otherwise, the prior name will be removed entirely. If you published an article with co-author(s), please note that consent from co-author(s) is not required.