Law school involves creation—of briefs, case plans, memos, and personas for litigation. Oftentimes in this stressful environment, our creative expression of things outside law can go by the wayside.
Our mission here at Causa Vitae is to be an outlet for Minnesota Law to explore its expressive side that is too-often overwhelmed by the pressures of school, and to offer a structure for people to submit their unique individual contributions.
We’re looking for tangible works, short fiction, essays, poetry, photography, digital and analog art, and other creative effort to celebrate our classmates’ creative impulses and to find meaning in the rigors of legal education. We are open to ALL students, top to bottom of Mondale Hall.
Current issues of Causa Vitae can be viewed by clicking the cover of an issue below.
Submissions for Causa Vitae are currently closed. Submissions will reopen in Fall 2019.
1) Submissions will be reviewed by a panel of three students (one 1L, one 2L, and one 3L) all of whom are associated with the Well-Being Initiative and are part of the Meaning Committee. Submission reviewers are bound to confidentiality and will not reveal information about works or creators unless specifically requested to do so. All three reviewers will review a submission before it reaches publication. Any additional staff members will also be required to abide by confidentiality.
2) Causa Vitae is an online publication. As such, submissions should be submitted in an appropriate format (electronic files) as works will not be returned, nor photographed by the zine. All visual mediums should be recorded by photograph. Submissions are limited to two per person, each in a different format. Submissions should generally respond to the theme.
3) Submissions may or may not be anonymous. Please indicate on your submission whether you would like your name, year, and brief personal statement attached to the work should it be published. Written submissions that are not anonymous may be contacted about potential edits.
4) Submissions are encouraged to be accompanied by a tagline denoting the author’s name, year, and any other salient one-two sentence details.
5) Not all Submissions may be published. The zine will not provide notice on why or why not a submission was successful.
6) Submissions that are supportive of hate or violence will be rejected. The goal of the zine is to create an outlet, and references or pieces dealing with difficult themes are encouraged, however works supporting hatred or violence may be accompanied with trigger warnings to aid our viewers in selecting content that will be beneficial to them. You are encouraged to accompany submissions with suggested tags/warnings.
7) Submissions, questions, comments, and concerns can be sent to causavitae.mnlaw@umn.edu. Please also contact staff for any accessibility concerns or if you have an interest in participating in the production of the zine.