Submissions
Write for us
We accept unsolicited articles from practising litigators. Everything below is the whole arrangement — there is no second, longer agreement.
Before you send anything: a submission is not confidential, and sending one does not create an attorney–client relationship, a joint-defence relationship, or any duty on our part. Do not send privileged material, client-identifying facts, or anything you are not free to publish under your own name.
The opening note says that coverage on the civil track comes from contributing colleagues in private practice, writing in their own names. This is how that works.
What we are looking for
Working notes from people who try cases. A procedural mechanism you have actually used and seen fail. A line of authority that practitioners routinely state too broadly. A recent decision that changes what you would file on Monday, explained by someone who would have to file it. The test we apply is the one in the opening note: would a litigator forward this to another litigator with the subject line “worth your time”?
What we are not looking for: firm news, case round-ups, anything written primarily to rank for a search term, and pieces whose argument is that readers should retain the author. There is no shortage of places for those.
Both tracks are open — civil and commercial litigation, and immigration litigation. Between roughly 1,500 and 4,500 words suits the format, though a genuinely tight 900-word note on a single point is welcome and a 6,000-word treatment of something that deserves it will not be turned away for length alone.
The standards we apply
The three commitments in the opening note bind contributors exactly as they bind the editor.
Every citation is to a source you have actually read. Not skimmed, not taken from a headnote, not produced by software. We check citations before publication, and we check the ones that are doing the most work first. A piece with a fabricated or mis-stated citation is not edited; it is declined, and we do not read a second submission from the same author.
Commentary is labelled as commentary. Where a question is unsettled, say so. Do not round a district court decision up to circuit law, an unpublished disposition up to precedent, or dicta up to a holding. If you know a case only through another court’s discussion of it, say that in the note — it reads as rigour, not as weakness.
Nothing published here is legal advice, and every piece carries that notice.
Two further requirements specific to contributors. Do not write about your own pending matter without disclosing it in the piece; we will usually still publish, but the reader is entitled to know. And nothing identifying a client, opposing party, or witness — including facts distinctive enough to identify them — goes in, whether or not you have consent.
What a published author gets
A byline in your own name. A short biographical note at the foot of the piece — two or three sentences: your firm, your practice, where you are admitted. One link, in that note, to your firm profile or your own site.
That link carries rel="nofollow". We say so plainly because you should know what you are getting before you spend a weekend writing. This site does not trade links for content, and a site that did would be worth less to write for. What the link is actually for is the reader who has just finished your piece, found it useful, and wants to know who you are — which, in this line of work, is the traffic that matters.
No money changes hands in either direction. We do not pay contributors and we do not charge for publication, consideration, placement, or anything else. If someone tells you otherwise, they are not us.
You keep your copyright. By submitting, you confirm the piece is your own original work, that it has not been published elsewhere and will not be published elsewhere without a note saying it appeared here first, and you grant us a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide right to publish it on this site and to keep it in the archive. We will not license it on to anyone else. If you later want it taken down, ask and we will take it down.
Editing, and declining
We edit for structure, length, and clarity, and we will send you the edited version before it runs. We do not change your legal analysis, and if we think an argument is wrong we raise it with you rather than quietly softening it. If you and the editor cannot agree, the piece does not run and no hard feelings attach.
Publication is entirely at our discretion. We decline pieces for reasons that have nothing to do with quality — because a conflict exists or might arise with a matter this practice is handling, because we have run something close to it recently, or because the subject sits at an awkward angle to a live case. We do not always explain which reason applies, and we will not enter into correspondence about a declined piece. Nothing in this page obliges us to publish, to respond, or to give reasons.
We are not a referral service. Publication here is not an endorsement of the author, and nothing on this site should be read as a recommendation of any lawyer or firm.
How to submit
Email the piece to info@litigation.blog. There is no form, no account, and nothing to sign up for.
Send it as a Word document or plain text, with citations in the body or as endnotes — house style is endnotes, but do not spend time converting. Include the two or three sentences you want as your biographical note and the single link you want in it. A one-paragraph email saying what the piece argues and why it is timely helps more than a formal covering letter.
We read everything. We aim to reply within three weeks, and we do not always manage it; a follow-up after a month is welcome and will not count against you.