Overview
The Vanderbilt Law Review publishes six times a year (January, March, April, May, October, and November). We have two selection cycles (spring and fall) per year. Vanderbilt Law Review also has an online companion journal called Vanderbilt Law Review En Banc.
Volume 78, Issue 1 | January 2025 | Robert J. Rhee | Article
On Entityness and Takeovers
This Article advances a theory of entityness that theorizes the firm and its relationship to the acquisition premium. This theory is the first scholarly analysis to construct a general model of takeover valuation by integrating the modern finance theory of asset value and a corrected Coasean theory of the firm. The acquisition premium is an enigma. Acquirers must pay it. But why? Isn’t the market price tethered to fundamental value through an efficient market? This enigma reveals a key insight about firms. The theory of entityness postulates that the acquisition premium is compensation for a capitalized asset intrinsic in the firm structure.
Nicole Langston | Article
Discharging Government Debt
This Article advocates for targeted reforms to the bankruptcy system and discharge guidelines to promote a more generalized standard of discharge for government-owed debt and further advances the debate about whether there should be nondischargeable debt in the consumer bankruptcy system.
Richard Frankel | Article
Fighting Mass Arbitration
Mass arbitration represents the newest battleground between corporations and consumer and employee advocates over mandatory arbitration and access to justice. Companies thought they had finally won the arbitration wars after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that they could insert class action bans into their arbitration clauses, bestowing companies with widespread immunity from a large swath of consumer and employee claims.
William Magnuson | Article
Original Discontent
This Article argues that, in doing so, judges, scholars, and policymakers have underestimated an important feature of the process of constitution-making: the discontent of the enactors themselves with the Constitution they were enacting. Their discontent went to the very foundation of the Constitution. In short, many founders believed that the Constitution they created was not, in fact, good law.
Vanderbilt Law Review En Banc Publications
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How Different Are the Trump Judges?
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Getting It Right the First Time: Making Child Sex Offender Sentencing in the Fourth Circuit More Efficient with a New Methodology for Crafting Content- Based Special Conditions of Supervised Release
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A “Profoundly Contractarian Predisposition”: Delaware Courts Decide Recent Drafting Disputes by Limiting Their Review to Four Corners of Contracts
Submissions
Submissions for our journal are currently closed. The Vanderbilt Law Review will resume collecting submissions around early August 2025.
The Vanderbilt Law Review publishes six times a year (January, March, April, May, October, and November). We have two selection cycles (spring and fall) per year. During a selection cycle, we accept submissions on a rolling basis. We do not accept submissions solely authored by law school students.
The Vanderbilt Law Review En Banc is the online companion journal to the Vanderbilt Law Review, designed to advance scholarly discussion and to make legal scholarship more accessible to a larger audience. En Banc accepts and publishes various forms of scholarship, including the following:
- Roundtables to host debates among legal academics and practitioners, usually on topical issues or notable cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court;
- Responses to articles originally published either in the Vanderbilt Law Review or with Vanderbilt Law Review En Banc;
- Essays written by scholars, practitioners, judges, or students on contemporary legal issues;
- Notes and Comments written by Vanderbilt Law Review members on various legal issues; and
- Book Reviews written by professors, with a focus on reviewing books authored by a Vanderbilt Law School faculty member.
- We also encourage submissions of writings that do not fit into the above categories, so long as they include a strong legal hook.
En Banc publishes on a more flexible schedule than the print version, and so may review and accept submissions at any time, though publication typically occurs during the academic year.
Inquiries and Information
Ashley Gray
Vanderbilt Law Review
Vanderbilt University Law School
131 21st Av. S. Nashville, TN 37203
(615) 322-2284