About the Journal

Law and Contemporary Problems is a quarterly, interdisciplinary publication of Duke Law School. Recognizing that many fields in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities conduct research and analysis that can contribute to the improvement of law, L&CP’s purpose is to collect and publish articles of value from all disciplines whose study contributes to the development of law.

L&CP was founded in 1933 and is the oldest journal published at Duke Law School. During its first forty years of existence, L&CP was edited and managed entirely by a faculty board of editors. In the 1970s, students began managing the editing process, while faculty members continued to be involved through selecting symposium topics and assisting in long-term planning. Today, the chairperson and members of the faculty editorial board are appointed by the dean of Duke Law, and the student executive board is appointed by the outgoing executive board.

L&CP uses a symposium format, generally publishing one symposium per issue on a topic of contemporary concern. Recent symposia have included “Conservative and Progressive Legal Orders,” “Judgments Judged and Wrongs Remembered: Examining the Japanese American Civil Liberties Cases on Their Sixtieth Anniversary,” and “The Emergence of Global Administrative Law.” Authors and articles are selected to ensure each issue collectively creates a unified presentation of the contemporary problem under consideration. L&CP hosts an annual conference at Duke Law School featuring the authors of one of the year’s four symposia.

Citations

Citation to Law and Contemporary Problems articles should be made according to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (18th ed. 2005) with the addition of the season of publication within the parenthetical clause for the date of publication (e.g., Author, Title, 70 Law & Contemp. Probs. 1 (Winter 2007)).