They are looking for pitches on American courts, judges, and the legal system; “original reporting and voice-y commentary on court opinions, judicial nominations, the legal profession, and legal academia. Typically, these essays run between 800 and 1200 words. … we are also interested in pitches for stories that might slip through the cracks elsewhere. Deep-dive analyses of sparsely-discussed Supreme Court cases that highlight the legal system’s failures, like this, are great. So are stories about people whose petitions the Court turns away, since the cases the justices ignore say as much about their priorities as the cases they accept.
That said, we also love pitches that are a little less tethered to the news cycle: explainers of important legal concepts and (usually) why they are bad, Q&As with smart people who have good ideas, and reviews of law-adjacent books, movies, TV shows, articles, and the like.” Also, “Typically, we pay $500 for essays of about 1000 words, and adjust both figures up or down based on a project’s scope, the depth of necessary research, your availability, and the like. See their pitch call here and their detailed guidelines here.