Journal of American Law

Editorial Guidelines

The Journal of American Law is a scholarly law review presenting commentary on emerging or topical developments in the law, specifically in the property and casualty insurance industry. The Journal, a publication of the Claims and Litigation Management (CLM) Alliance, is peer reviewed by industry experts and features articles focused a wide variety of subjects.

Exclusive Submission

The Journal of American Law invites submissions from industry experts on a variety of areas, including ADR, business litigation, civil litigation and procedure, construction/real estate, diversity and inclusion, environmental/energy, insurance/reinsurance, premise liability, product liability, professional liability, and workers’ compensation.

Prior to submission of a paper, a brief proposal must be submitted and approved. The proposal should briefly outline the subject matter in such a way that demonstrates the value of the developed article. Once approved for submission, a final draft of the paper will be reviewed by members of the applicable specialty editorial board for acceptance and comments. Any papers submitted by a specialty editorial board member will be reviewed by the Journal’s Executive Editorial Board. All papers receive a final review from the Executive Editorial Board. The peer-review process takes eight weeks or more depending on the complexity of the subject matter.

The Journal only publishes papers that have not been previously published elsewhere in whole or in part in print or online. If a small portion has appeared in another publication, please note that in your submission. If you have submitted your paper to another journal prior to submitting it to the Journal of American Law, please note that in your submission. Papers may not be submitted for consideration in another publication or any portion published in print or online once development for the Journal has been approved by a specialty editorial board.

Additional guidelines include:

• Length: Authors should focus on appropriately covering their topic rather than conforming to a specific word count. However, in order to foster readability of all papers, authors should attempt to keep papers in the range of 3,000 to 6,000 words This does not include the word count of the footnotes. Scholarly development should require no less than the minimum word count. However, if the word count is a bit over 6,000 words, that is not a problem. There should be a suggested title and subtitle provided.

• Summary: A 200- to 300-word summary must be included that concisely describes your paper. The summary is in addition to the full article.

• Citations: Papers should follow The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation for all citations and footnotes.

• Bios: The author should include a bio of no more than 100 words—a total of no more than 150 words when there are multiple authors.

• Editing: The Journal reserves the right to edit all submissions for grammar, style, and clarity.

• Format: Articles should be submitted in MS Word format.

You can submit a proposal or paper via our website at www.theclm.org/jal. If you have any questions regarding the submission or peer-review process, please review the guidelines here first. If you have additional questions, contact Editor Bevrlee J. Lips.

Publication And Licensing

The Journal of American Law requires that all contributing authors agree to its license agreement, which specifies in part that the article being written may not be published elsewhere until it has appeared in print in the Journal of American Law. By agreeing to develop a piece for the Journal, the author(s) agrees to the terms of the Author Warrantee and License Agreement. The agreement gives the author full copyright and the right to republish elsewhere but only after the article appears in the Journal of American Law.

As a condition of publication, contributing authors warrant that the work they submit represents original, previously unpublished work, except for excerpts from previously published works that fall within the bounds of fair use or for which permission to include has been secured from the copyright owners thereof; contains no matter that is libelous, unlawful, or which infringes upon anyone’s proprietary rights, including, but not limited to, statutory or common law copyright; and does not violate any right of privacy.

Publication Schedule

The Journal is published four times a year — once per quarter. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis. To be considered for a specific issue, submit your paper at least four months prior to the publication date.

Expedited Requests

If you have received an offer of publication for your proposal topic or paper from another journal or magazine, please request an expedited review of your submission. We cannot guarantee an expedited review but will notify you of the status of our review and whether or not we can accommodate an earlier publication date. Do not request an expedited review of a time period shorter than three weeks. We are unable to accommodate such requests.

Publishing Rights

The Journal reserves the right to publish submissions in print or digital format or both. The publisher (CLM) retains worldwide print and electronic publishing rights for all papers selected for publishing. All authors must agree to the terms of the Author Warranty and License Agreement.

Authors may seek permission from the CLM to reprint or link to digital copies of published papers. Such requests should be made to Susan Wisbey-Smith