Seeking Editorial Board Members for The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics

The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics (JLME), a leading multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal originally founded in 1973 (as the Medico-Legal News), is seeking to recruit a dynamic and diverse team of editorial board members.

Editorial board members will serve a 3-year term (renewable), during which time they will have the opportunity to shape the growing literature in this field and gain exposure to the journal editing process. JLME publishes quantitative and qualitative research as well as normative analyses covering topics at the intersection of domestic, comparative, and global law, health policy, ethics, and medicine. 

JLME is the flagship journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics (ASLME), a professional society that hosts the annual Health Law Professors’ Conference, as well as other national events at the intersection of law, medicine, bioethics, and public health. The journal publishes 4 regular issues and up to 2 supplemental issues every year, with the capacity to publish one or more symposia in each issue. JLME articles are typically 20-25 double-spaced pages (4000-6000 words). A typical JLME issue contains 3-5 independent articles. JLME receives numerous independent article submissions each year, with symposia articles managed separately by guest editors. Aaron Kesselheim (Brigham & Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School) serves as the journal’s editor-in-chief. 

Editorial board member responsibilities:

• Provide peer review of and/or manage 2-4 independent article submissions each year within the editorial board member’s general areas of expertise (alternatively, serve as editor for 1 symposium in a year).
• Managing articles include helping select reviewers, ensuring the completion of the peer review process, making recommendations to the editor-in-chief/associate editors regarding publication, and helping identify Commentary authors.
• Collaborate with the editor-in-chief regarding goals and policies for the journal, including soliciting symposia topics and guest editors.
• Participate in one annual ~1-2 hr editorial board meeting.

Editorial board members should be familiar with the standards of academic publishing and peer review. We encourage members from all career stages, across all relevant disciplines, and from around the world. Members are still encouraged to submit articles to and write commentaries for JLME. Editorial board members are unpaid,
with gratitude for their service to the field, and will be listed in the masthead in each journal issue. If you would like to be considered for the editorial board, please submit your CV to ASLME interim Executive Director Katie Johnson (kjohnson@aslme.org) by January 15. If you have questions, please email Aaron Kesselheim (akesselheim@bwh.harvard.edu).

Facts about JLME:

• JLME is a multidisciplinary publication that is read by specialists from many different backgrounds and fields around the world. JLME is published by Cambridge University Press and its articles are rapidly indexed on PubMed, Westlaw, LexisNexis, and other widely-used academic and professional search engines. Hard copies of the journal are mailed globally to thousands of libraries and the membership of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics.
• JLME is listed as having an h-index (for articles published in the last 5 years) of 28, and a 2023 Impact Factor of 1.6, which is 87th percentile among law journals, 60th percentile among ethics journals, and 46th percentile among medical ethics journals.
• There is no publication fee for JLME, unless authors seek open access from the first date of publication. Articles are available gold open access when the corresponding author is based at an institution with such an agreement with Cambridge University Press.
• We are in the process of moving to an online submission portal and facilitating online pre-publication following manuscript acceptance. We are also in the process of determining whether we have the capacity to take on associate editors to work with the editor-in-chief