Academic Legal Writing - Eugene Volokh [150]
B. Competitions That Don't Offer Publication
If the competition doesn't offer to publish the winner, your goal should be (a) to submit the article both to the competition and to the law reviews, and (b) to use success in one field to get success in another.
The perfect scenario would be if you finish the paper during a month when many law reviews aren't considering submissions, such as November (see Part XXIII.A.3, p. 263); the competition deadline is in that month; and the organizers promise to announce the results before the next law review submission window (here, March). That way, if you win the competition, you can mention your success in the cover letter to the law review.
I suspect that many law reviews will be impressed by the seal of approval that the competition gives: The law review editors may realize that the competition was judged by experts in the field, who probably know more about the topic than the editors do. The editors will still evaluate the article for themselves—to make sure, for instance, that the paper isn't just a good piece for practitioners, but also fits the academic format that the law review prefers. But they'll probably be influenced by your success.
If the competition doesn't get back to you until April, after you've already submitted the article, no problem. Many journals will still be considering your piece; you should send them a follow-up letter noting that the article you sent them has won the award. This may seem like bragging, but professional manners aren't quite the same as social manners—some amount of subtle boasting is quite proper.
You shouldn't, however, delay submitting to the law reviews until the competition results are announced. Even if your paper is very good, it's impossible to predict whether you'll win the competition; you might end up delaying your submission for nothing. And the longer you delay submitting your article for publication, the likelier it will be that it will be preempted by someone else's work, or by some new case or statute.
What if the competition deadline is after the best time to submit to the journals? For instance, what if your article is ready for the March submission window, but the competition deadline is in June? Submit the article to the law reviews in March, and then if the article is accepted by June, mention this in the cover letter to the competition.
I doubt that this mention will help, since the people who run the competition probably think (and rightly so) that they know much more about the field than does the typical law review student editor. The competition judges might also feel that, since this is a formal competition, they should ignore anything other than the quality of the paper. But the mention probably won't hurt, since people are often influenced by credentials even when they try not to be.
C. Competitions That Guarantee Publication
If the competition promises to publish the winner, you should ask yourself a few questions:
a. “Is this the sort of publication in which I want this article to be published?” If, for instance, you're writing your article because you eventually want to get into law teaching, you probably want it published in a traditional law review, and not a practitioner journal. If the competition comes with a promise that the winner will be published in a practitioner journal (such as the California Lawyer, a well-regarded publication but one that's not a traditional law review), then it might not be right for you, even if there's, say, $1000 being offered as a prize. Practitioner journals also generally want shorter pieces than law