Transforming content from a legal blog into a law review article involves a significant shift in tone, structure, and depth of analysis. Legal blogs are typically written for a general audience or practicing attorneys, focusing on accessibility, brevity, and practical insights. In contrast, law review articles are scholarly pieces aimed at academics, judges, and legal professionals, requiring rigorous research, detailed argumentation, and extensive citation of authorities. Below is a step-by-step guide to help you convert a legal blog post into a law review article:

1. Identify the Core Issue or Thesis

• Blog Context: Legal blogs often discuss a recent case, statute, or legal trend in a conversational or summarized manner. The thesis might be implied or briefly stated.


• Law Review Context: A law review article requires a clear, specific, and novel thesis. Ask yourself: What unique contribution can this piece make to legal scholarship? Is there a gap in the existing literature that your analysis can address?


• Action: Refine the blog’s topic into a central argument or research question. For example, instead of summarizing a Supreme Court decision (as in a blog), propose a critique of the Court’s reasoning or suggest a new framework for addressing the issue.

• Blog: “Recent SCOTUS Ruling on Free Speech in Social Media Cases”


• Law Review Thesis: “The Supreme Court’s Recent Free Speech Ruling on Social Media Fails to Address the Tension Between First Amendment Protections and Platform Moderation Policies: A Proposed Balancing Test.”

2. Expand the Depth of Research

• Blog Context: Blogs often cite a few key cases or statutes with minimal footnotes or hyperlinks.


• Law Review Context: Law reviews demand exhaustive research, including primary sources (cases, statutes, regulations) and secondary sources (existing law review articles, books, and treatises). Use legal databases like Westlaw, LexisNexis, or HeinOnline to find relevant material.


• Action: Conduct a comprehensive literature review to understand the current state of scholarship on your topic. Identify conflicting viewpoints, unresolved issues, or areas for innovation. Ensure your article adds value by engaging with or critiquing existing arguments.

3. Restructure for Scholarly Format

• Blog Context: Blogs are short, often 500-1,500 words, with a casual structure (e.g., intro, summary, quick analysis, and conclusion).


• Law Review Context: Law review articles are much longer (often 10,000-25,000 words) and follow a formal structure:


• Introduction: State the problem, your thesis, and a roadmap of the article.


• Background: Provide a detailed history of the legal issue, including case law, statutes, and scholarly debates.


• Analysis: Present your argument in depth, addressing counterarguments and supporting your position with evidence and reasoning.


• Proposal/Solution (if applicable): Offer a new framework, policy recommendation, or interpretation.


• Conclusion: Summarize your findings and restate the importance of your contribution.


• Action: Expand each section of your blog into a fully developed part of the law review article. For instance, a blog’s brief mention of a case should become a detailed discussion of the case’s facts, holding, reasoning, and implications in the law review.

4. Adopt a Formal Tone and Style

• Blog Context: Blogs use conversational language, contractions, and sometimes personal anecdotes to engage readers.


• Law Review Context: Law reviews require formal, precise language with an objective tone. Avoid colloquialisms and ensure clarity in legal terminology.


• Action: Revise the blog’s tone to eliminate informal phrasing. Replace opinions with reasoned arguments backed by authority.

• Blog: “This ruling is a total game-changer for employers!”


• Law Review: “This decision significantly alters the legal landscape for employers by revising the standard for liability under employment discrimination statutes.”

5. Incorporate Rigorous Citation and Footnotes

• Blog Context: Citations, if present, are usually informal (e.g., hyperlinks to a case or article).


• Law Review Context: Law reviews require meticulous citation using The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. Every factual claim, legal principle, and reference must be supported by a footnote.


• Action: Learn and apply Bluebook rules for cases, statutes, and secondary sources. Use footnotes to provide additional context, address counterarguments, or cite related scholarship.

6. Engage with Counterarguments

• Blog Context: Blogs often present a single perspective or opinion without delving into opposing views.


• Law Review Context: Scholarly writing must anticipate and address counterarguments to demonstrate a balanced and thorough analysis.


• Action: Identify potential criticisms of your thesis and refute or distinguish them using legal reasoning and authority. This shows intellectual honesty and strengthens your argument.

7. Ensure Originality and Contribution to Scholarship

• Blog Context: Blogs may summarize existing information or provide practical tips without offering new insights.


• Law Review Context: Law reviews prioritize original contributions to legal thought, such as novel interpretations, critiques, or policy proposals.


• Action: Ensure your article offers something new. This could be a reinterpretation of case law, a synthesis of disparate legal doctrines, or a solution to an unresolved problem. Use your research to confirm that your idea hasn’t been fully explored in prior scholarship.

8. Edit for Length and Detail

• Blog Context: Blogs are concise and to the point, often omitting nuanced discussion for brevity.


• Law Review Context: Law reviews allow (and expect) in-depth exploration of issues, which means significantly expanding the content.


• Action: Flesh out each point with detailed analysis, examples, and citations. A single paragraph in a blog might become several pages in a law review article.

9. Seek Feedback and Revise

• Blog Context: Blogs are often published quickly with minimal peer review.


• Law Review Context: Law review articles benefit from feedback by professors, peers, or mentors to refine arguments and ensure accuracy.


• Action: Share drafts with colleagues or advisors for input on the strength of your thesis, clarity of writing, and depth of research. Revise based on their feedback.

10. Prepare for Submission

• Blog Context: Blogs are self-published or submitted to a website with minimal formalities.


• Law Review Context: Law reviews have strict submission guidelines, including formatting (often double-spaced, specific margins), word count limits, and submission platforms like Scholastica or ExpressO.


• Action: Research target law reviews to understand their focus (e.g., general, specialized in a field like environmental law), submission windows, and requirements. Tailor your article to fit their scope and style.

Example Transformation

• Title: “New Privacy Law Impacts Small Businesses”


• Content: Summarizes a new data privacy statute, highlights key provisions, and offers a quick opinion on its burden for small businesses. Includes one or two hyperlinks to news articles.

• Title: “Balancing Privacy and Innovation: The Disproportionate Impact of Data Protection Laws on Small Businesses and a Proposed Exemption Framework”


• Structure:


• Introduction: States the problem of regulatory burdens on small businesses and proposes a tiered exemption framework.


• Background: Traces the history of data privacy laws in the U.S. and EU, major cases, and legislative intent behind the new statute.


• Analysis: Critiques the statute’s one-size-fits-all approach, using economic data and legal precedents to argue it unfairly burdens small businesses.


• Proposal: Suggests a tiered compliance model based on company size and data usage, comparing it to existing exemptions in other areas of law.


• Conclusion: Reiterates the need for reform and calls for further research.


• Citations: Extensive Bluebookfootnotes referencing statutes, case law, law review articles, and government reports.

By following these steps, you can elevate a practical, reader-friendly blog post into a scholarly, impactful law review article that contributes meaningfully to legal discourse. If you have a specific blog post in mind, I’d be happy to help refine its transformation! Let me know.