Book Reviews & Essays

Though we accept submissions through ExpressO, we strongly prefer to receive submissions and queries through email. Please email your submission or query to the Senior Book Reviews and Essays Editor, Becca Schonberg, at clrbre@gmail.com.

If you choose to submit through ExpressO, please clearly mark your submission as a Book Review, Essay, or Review Essay (as appropriate). We recommend prefacing your title with the appropriate term, for example, “ESSAY: [Your Title: Your Subtitle].”  Following this convention will aid in your submission being routed more quickly to our department.

If online submission is not possible, paper submissions that conform to the submission guidelines below may be mailed to the following address:

Book Reviews & Essays Department
California Law Review
40 Boalt Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720

Submission Guidelines

1) Both text and notes should be double-spaced and set in a proportional, serif font (like Times New Roman) sized to at least 12 points.

2) Citations must conform to the 19th edition of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation.

3) Please include the following contact information with your submission:

• - Name

• - Mail Address

• - Email Address

• - Phone Number

• - Author's CV

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Becca Schonberg, the Senior Book Reviews & Essays Editor through email.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is an essay? There is no solid line dividing essay from article. However, when evaluating pieces for publication, BRE looks for work that methodologically, stylistically, or topically diverges from more familiar modes of legal scholarship. We are especially interested in pieces that live up to the word "essay" in its literal sense: to try, to weigh, to experiment, to test. Essays may be playful; they may elaborate visions of worlds quite different from our own; they may be lyrical in tone or narrative in structure; they may use techniques from other disciplines such as literary theory, journalism, history, or linguistics; they may pose many questions none of which have clear answers; they may do several of these things or none at all. The only thing they must do is make us think.