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Submitting your materials

Submission instructions

Legal Studies uses ScholarOne Manuscripts, for online manuscript submission and peer review. The system brings with it a whole host of benefits including:

  • Quick and easy submission
  • Administration centralised and reduced
  • Significant decrease in peer review times


All submissions to the journal including book reviews must be submitted online at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/lest

Full instructions and support are available on the site and a user ID and password can be obtained on the first visit. If you require assistance then click the Get Help Now link which appears at the top right corner of every ScholarOne Manuscripts page. If you cannot submit online, please contact the Legal Studies Editorial Office.

Submitting an article to Legal Studies implies that it has not been published elsewhere and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

Submission specifications

Authors should follow the detailed guidance on how to prepare their material here. This includes details of the style points to be followed in each paper.

Legal Studies welcomes submissions of no more than 12,000 words inclusive of footnotes. Footnotes should not be excessive in length or in number. The editors reserve the right to request that authors reduce footnote text in advance of peer review and/or publication.

In submitting papers authors should observe the following:

  • Contributions should be submitted on A4 pages in text of 10pt or larger, double line spaced and with margins of at least 2.5 cm.
  • Contributions should begin with the title of the article, followed by the author's name and institution. An Abstract should precede the article.
  • Footnotes should appear on the same page as the relevant text, and be indicated by Arabic numerals.
  • Internal cross referencing should be to footnotes only (not pages).
  • References to statutes and cases should follow the style of Halsbury’s Laws of England, 4th edition. The Editorial Office and publisher are unable to check the accuracy of references and the onus of accuracy falls on the author.
  • Papers should adhere to the style guidelines included below.
  • Authors are asked to make sure their typescript is carefully checked and finalised particularly with regard to internal cross referencing and the citation of references. Afterthoughts cannot be incorporated on proofs.


Keywords

Please include 3 to 6 keywords to be published with your paper. The first keyword should be the relevant sub-field of law (for example Environmental Law). The next keyword(s) should be any sub-topic/niche topic within this (for example Climate Law). Ideally, at least one of these first two keywords should cover one of the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) Subject Sections. Any other keywords should address further themes or specifics of your paper. If your paper focuses on a particular case or piece of legislation or considers a particular geographic region then those should be included as keywords.

Use of colour

Charges apply for all colour figures that appear in the print version of the journal. At the time of submission, contributors should clearly state whether their figures should appear in colour in the online version only, or whether they should appear in colour online and in the print version. There is no charge for including colour figures in the online version of the journal but it must be clear that colour is needed to enhance the meaning of the figure, rather than simply being for aesthetic purposes. If you request colour figures in the printed version, you will be contacted by CCC-Rightslink who are acting on our behalf to collect Author Charges. Please follow their instructions in order to avoid any delay in the publication of your article.

Anonymising your paper

After initial review by the Editorial Office suitable manuscripts will undergo a process of double-blind peer review. To this end please make sure that your paper is anonymised before submission by eliminating any reference to your name or other elements that might enable the reviewer to immediately recognise the author. 

Decision times

Decisions on papers will normally be made within ten weeks.

Gold Open Access

An author may be eligible for Open Access publication without paying any charge (or a discounted charge) if their institution is part of an Open Access agreement (also known as Read and Publish/Transformative agreements) with Cambridge. Eligibility can be determined here. If an author is not covered by one of these agreements they may still publish Open Access through paying an Article Processing Charge (APC); current charges can be found here.