Legal Desire publishes analysis and commentary from people who work in and around the law. If you have something useful to say to lawyers, in-house counsel, legal operations leaders or law students, we would like to read it.
This page explains what we accept, what we do not, how the review process works, and how our free editorial submissions differ from our paid placement products. Please read it before you send anything.
Who can contribute
We do not require a title or a masthead credential. We do require that you know the subject you are writing about. In practice our contributors tend to be:
- Practising lawyers and advocates, in private practice or in-house
- General counsel, deputy GCs and legal operations professionals
- Law firm knowledge, marketing and business development professionals writing about the business of law
- Academics, researchers and doctoral candidates
- Law students and recent graduates, particularly on academic and career subjects
- Practitioners in adjacent fields such as forensics, compliance, arbitration and legal technology
We publish first time writers regularly. A clear argument from someone with real experience beats a polished piece with nothing in it.
What we publish
Broadly, anything of substance that touches law and the legal profession. The areas we commission and accept most often are:
- Case analysis and judgment commentary, including comparative treatment across jurisdictions
- Regulatory and legislative developments, and what they mean in practice
- Corporate, M&A, capital markets, insolvency and competition law
- Disputes, arbitration and litigation strategy
- Intellectual property, media law and data protection
- Constitutional, human rights and public law
- Criminal law, forensics and criminal investigation
- Legal technology and artificial intelligence in legal practice
- The business of law: firm strategy, pricing, talent, legal operations
- Legal education, careers and life in the profession
We cover developments across the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Middle East, India and Asia Pacific. Writing about a jurisdiction we cover less often is a point in your favour, not against you, provided you explain the context for a reader outside it.
What we do not accept
- Thinly veiled promotion. A piece whose real purpose is to advertise your firm, your product or your service is not an editorial submission. If every example in the article is your own work, it is marketing.
- Paid links dressed as editorial. We do not accept articles submitted on behalf of a third party in order to place a link, whatever the article is about. If you have been paid to place a link, tell us, and we will treat the submission as a commercial enquiry rather than reject you outright.
- Undisclosed conflicts of interest. If you act for, invest in, or are employed by a party you are writing about, disclose it. We will usually still publish, with the disclosure attached.
- Content generated wholesale by AI and submitted as your own. Using a model to help you draft or tighten your writing is fine. Sending us unverified machine output is not, and it tends to be obvious.
- Material published elsewhere first, unless you tell us and we agree in advance.
- Legal advice presented as legal advice. We publish commentary and analysis for a professional readership. We do not publish anything that reads as advice to an individual reader on their own matter.
- Anything defamatory, obscene, hateful, or in contempt of a live proceeding.
- Off topic submissions with no genuine connection to law.
Editorial standards
Everything we publish, including contributed work, is held to our published editorial standards. In short:
- Cite your sources. Link to the judgment, the statute, the filing or the regulator’s notice, not to a summary of it.
- Quote accurately, and attribute quotes to a named source where you can.
- Separate what the law says from what you think about it. Argue, but signal that you are arguing.
- Write for a reader who is intelligent and busy but may not practise in your area.
- We edit for accuracy, clarity, house style and length. Substantive changes go back to you before publication.
- We correct errors when they are pointed out, and we say so on the article.
Length and format
- Length: most pieces we publish run between 800 and 1,500 words. Longer is fine if the subject genuinely needs it. Under 600 words rarely says enough to be worth a reader’s time.
- Format: send a Word document (.doc or .docx) or a Google Docs link with comment access. Please do not send PDFs or images of text.
- Structure: a working headline, a short standfirst of one or two sentences, and subheadings every few hundred words.
- Links: place source links inline in the text where the claim is made.
- About you: include a two or three line author bio, your current role and organisation, and a photograph if you have one.
How we review, and how long it takes
- Acknowledgement. We confirm receipt of your submission.
- Editorial review. An editor reads the piece for accuracy, originality and fit. We aim to come back to you with a decision within 5 to 7 working days. Time sensitive commentary on a judgment or a regulatory announcement is moved to the front of the queue, so flag it when you send it.
- Edit. If we accept, we edit and send you anything substantive for approval.
- Publication. We publish, credit you, and share the piece through our social channels and weekly newsletter.
We read everything. We do not publish everything, and we will not always be able to give detailed feedback on a piece we decline.
Editorial contributions and paid placement are two different things
This distinction matters, so we will be plain about it.
Editorial contributions are free. You do not pay us to be published, and we do not pay you. Acceptance is an editorial decision and nothing else. Advertisers and sponsors have no say in what we accept.
Sponsored and promotional placement is a separate, paid product. If your goal is brand visibility, a followed link to your firm or a guaranteed publication slot, that is advertising, and it is priced and sold as advertising. It is clearly labelled as Partner Content or Sponsored when it runs, and links in paid placements are attributed as search engines require. We will not disguise a paid placement as editorial, and we will not accept payment to influence an editorial piece.
If paid placement is what you are after, that is a perfectly legitimate thing to want, and you can see the options on our advertise with Legal Desire page.
How to submit
Send your piece, or a short pitch if you would rather check the idea first, through our guest submission page. It sets out exactly what to include and where to send it.
Go to the guest submission page
If you would rather just email us, write to info@legaldesire.com with your draft attached and a line about who you are. Please put the working headline in the subject.
A pitch of a short paragraph is enough at the idea stage: what the piece argues, why it matters now, and why you are the person to write it.