Writing Academic Papers for Law School

The thesis of your substantial writing paper must meet several requirements:

• It must be original
• It must take a position, advance an argument, or propose a solution
• It must be concrete, identifiable, and manageable
• It must be novel, useful, nonobvious, and sound

Your approach to the topic may be descriptive, prescriptive, or both.

You should also do a preemption check on your thesis, which means you make sure no one else has argued your exact same thesis/argument. You research the key terms of your thesis to make sure that no scholarly work comes up in your list of results with the same thesis.

Most law review theses fit into three main categories: proposing a solution to a legal problem, bringing an interdisciplinary idea into the law, and comparing two or more legal ideas.

A law review thesis will usually engage in one or more common types of arguments. These may include:

• an argument from precedent,
• an interpretive argument,
• a normative argument, or
• an institutional argument.

For more information about these types of arguments, see Elizabeth Fajans & Mary R. Falk, Scholarly Writing for Law Students 37-38 (5th ed. 2017).

There are a few helpful ways to think about generating a solution as your thesis.

• This type of thesis might transfer a solution from one area to a new area.
• It might re-categorize claims and facts that have been made elsewhere.
• It might challenge assumptions about an area of law.
• It might extend or modify an existing theory or doctrine.
• It might borrow distinct legal principles to respond to new events.
• It might use analogy and metaphor.

For more information, see Elizabeth Fajans & Mary R. Falk, Scholarly Writing for Law Students 55-56 (5th ed. 2017).