A few months ago, a bunch of the top law reviews announced a change in their submission policies that introduced a preference for shorter articles. There was lots of commentary about the new policies both here and elsewhere. Now that the spring law review season is winding down, I'm wondering if the new policies made any difference. Did authors submit shorter pieces? Did the editors actually prefer shorter pieces, or did the change in policy exist only on paper?

  We'll get an idea of the answer in a year or two, when the new articles come out and readers can see whether they are on average shorter than the articles in recent years. We'll also know in a year or two whether journals beyond the initial group adopted the same or similar preferences. In the meantime, I thought it might be helpful to get a jump on that by asking for reader feedback. If you either submitted an article to a law journal this spring or were an editor at a law journal, please consider posting a comment below.

  Authors, please begin your comment with "AUTHOR:", and then say whether you shortened your submission in response to the new policies. Editors, please begin your comment with "EDITOR:", and then fill us in on whether editors at your journal were attentive to article length and whether you think your journal preferred shorter-than-average pieces. (Also, please include whether your journal was one of the journals that signed on to the change in submission policies.)

  Thanks to everyone for participating. The results are obviously going to be impressionistic at best, but I think it's better than nothing.