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Manuscript preparation

Aims and scope

Legal Studies is the journal of the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS). It aims to include a varied range of scholarly articles in each issue, including doctrinal, conceptual and socio-legal analyses and seeks to publish work which truly represents the broad range of interests across all legal scholarship. The journal warmly welcomes contributions from all those who wish to reach a broad international and UK readership.

Prior publication policy

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

Article types

Articles

Legal Studies welcomes article 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.

Current Developments

From 2023 Legal Studies is introducing a new Current Developments article type to cover substantive comments on recent case law, law reform proposals or legislative developments. Such comments may be up to 3,000 words inclusive of footnotes. In order to engage the journal’s audience, there will be presumptions that recent developments covered have occurred within the two years prior to submission, and that cases should be decisions from appellate courts in the relevant jurisdiction. Any author interested in contributing such a comment or book review should first contact [email protected]. All submitted comments would still be subject to peer review.

Book Reviews and Review Essays

Legal Studies also publishes book reviews and review essays of no more than 3,000 words inclusive of footnotes. Authors interested in writing a book review or review essay should first contact [email protected]. 

All article types should follow the style guidelines below.

Keywords

For articles 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.

Tables, figures and graphics

Please ensure that all tables, figures and graphics are provided in an editable format and should be of a suitable quality and resolution to be printed. Do not embed these files in the manuscript – they must be supplied in separate files, one file per figure. Please indicate the position of figures, tables and graphics in the text as follows:

Table 1: INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE

Permissions

Figures, tables and graphics reproduced from already published work must be accompanied by the permission of the original publisher (or copyright holder, if not the publisher). Full information on how to prepare and supply tables, figures and graphics can be found here and should be followed with care.

Pre-submission English-language editing

Authors whose first language is not English should ensure that their final draft is carefully checked, preferably by a native speaker of English, for accuracy. Authors for whom English is a second language may choose to have their paper professionally edited before submission to improve the English. Cambridge University Press offers a language-editing service in conjunction with a third-party provider American Journal Experts: www.cambridge.org/academic/author-services. Authors would pay for this service individually and there is absolutely no commitment that their paper will be accepted to a Cambridge-published journal if they use this service. Cambridge is providing this service in order to provide a convenient option for prospective authors, which comes with the reassurance that we have checked the quality of the provider, and will be continuously monitoring the quality of the service.

Peer review process and anonymising your work

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. 

Style guidelines

Please note that failure to follow the style guidelines may result in the return of your manuscript for reformatting before it is considered as a submission.

Headings

Three levels of heading are permitted. Level one is ALL CAPS and may be numbered 1., 2., 3. etc if desired. Level two is Bold, initial cap on first word only, may or may not be numbered (a), (b), (c). Level three is SMALL CAPS and may or may not be numbered (i), (ii), (iii).

Spellings

These should be English, not American, and should take the 'ise' form, not 'ize' (except in quoted material, which should follow the original in every respect).

Full stops

Full stops should not be used after initials, law reports or in abbreviations, eg para, ss, Sch, ie, etc, All ER, AC, HL, etc.

Abbreviations

Legislation abbreviations for sections, etc, should be in full at start of sentences. Abbreviations with initials just appear in brackets following word, eg World Trade Organisation (WTO). NB no quote marks. For other abbreviations use (the Convention), if article referring to only one, or (the 1950 Convention), if different conventions referred to in article, etc. Always abbreviate UK, UN and USA.

Italics

All words to appear in italics should be underlined or italicised in the typescript. Please use only for emphasis, case names, book titles and foreign expressions not in everyday use. Do not use italics for common latin expressions for example, a fortiori, ad hoc, ante, bona fide, certiorari, cf, de facto, de jure, eg, etc, et seq, ibid, ie, inter alia, intra vires, ipso facto, obiter, per, per se, prima facie, pro rata, ultra vires, vice versa, viz.

Quotes

Keep as original, including size, spelling etc. Quote marks should be single, with double for quotes within quotes. Material of three or more lines' length will be distinguished by indentation. Indented quotes should not have quotation marks. Interpolations should be indicated by the use of square brackets. To indicate omitted words, three full points . . . separated equally from one another and from any preceding or succeeding words or quotations marks are sufficient.

Numbers

Spell out 1-10 unless units of time eg hours, days, years etc. 9999. 10,000. 1994–1998. Twenty-first, fifty-third, etc (always spell out). Always US$ and US$6 million (no spaces).

Footnotes

Add ‘ibid’ for repeated footnote refs. Include above and below in footnotes when cross refereeing to other footnotes. Substitute ‘Above n 3’ etc if references are repeated.

Cross references

These should be to footnote number and associated text, to avoid having to insert page numbers on proof (in case a contribution is withdrawn, for instance).

Reference style

Bibliographical references should be in the following form:

A Bloggs Name of Book (London: Butterworths, 1995) pp 3-5
B Cloggs Name of Book (London: Butterworths, 2nd edn, 1996) ch 3
Y Zoggs 'Chapter title' in X Yoggs (ed) Name of Book (London: Butterworths, 3rd edn, 1998) p 88

Subsequent references in all cases should be to Bloggs, above n 2, p 6 (or Ibid, p 6 - only if referring to note immediately above)

Journal references should be in the following form:

A Bloggs 'Name of article' (1993) 14 LS 281
B Cloggs, D Doggs and E Floggs 'Name of article' (1993) 14 LS 281

References to statutes and cases should follow the style of Halsbury’s Laws of England, 4th edition

References to statutes should be made in the following manner:

Badgers Act 1973, s 8(2)(a).
Counter-Inflation Act 1973, Pt II (ss 3-11 and Schs 4-6)
Finance Act 1965, s 19(1), Sch 7
Prices Act 1974, Schedule
Agriculture Act 1970, Sch 5, Pt II
Gas Act 1972, Sch 4, para 35.

If one statute is referred to many times, use the following form: the Badgers Act 1973 (the Act) [and use 'the Act' for future refs], or the Badgers Act 1973 (the 1973 Act) and the Prices Act 1974 (the 1974 Act) [and use 'the 1973 Act' and 'the 1974 Act' thereafter]. For common acronyms - eg FA for Finance Act, etc - use the full name first, with the acronym in brackets and use the acronym thereafter.

Statutory Instruments should be referred to by name and date (ie short title) followed by the number - eg Local Authorities (Smallholdings) Order 1974, SI 1974/396 (note that as with statutes no comma should appear between the word 'Order' or 'Regulation', etc and the date.

Rules of court: Rules of the Supreme Court 1965 and the County Court Rules 1981 should be cited without reference to their SI number, eg:

RSC Ord 1
RSC Ord 15, r 6A(4)(a)
CCR Ord 5. r 3(3)(b)(ii)

Civil Procedure Rules:

CPR 1.2
CPR 36
CPR 39.2

Reports:

UN Working Group Report Title (Doc no, 1982)
Report Title,Working Paper (Doc no, 1982)
AB Smith, personal communication
Report Title, on file with author
A Smith ‘Title of article here’ (The Times, 9 December 2018)

Webpages:

See website available at http://www.eel.nl.
A Bloggs 'Name of article on web' Blog name (if used) here (2 November 2018), available at http://www.politics.co.uk

Conferences:

Paper Name Conference Name (London, 1999)

Command papers:

House of Commons Select Committee Name of Report Cm 641, February 2003, p 6

Parliamentary papers:

House of Commons Select Committee Name of Report Tenth Report of Session 2002–03, HC 654, 6 February 2003 (HMSO, 2003) p 6
HC Official Report (6th Series) col 267, 2 December 2004
Standing Committee E, cols 571–572, 12 February 2004, John Hayes

Hansard:

Hansard HC Deb, vol 257, col 167, 6 February 2003

Cases. Each time a case is referred to in the text, the case reports must be set out in a footnote. One report reference is sufficient - and the Law Reports or the All England Law Reports are preferred, or the Weekly Law Reports if neither of the above has reported the case. 'v' for 'versus' should be lower case italic, without a full stop. 'Re' should be used in place of 'In re', 'In the matter of', etc. 'Ex parte' should be abbreviated to Ex p, with a cap E where it begins the case name and a lower case elsewhere, eg:

Ex p Green
but
R v Southampton Trustees, ex p Davies.

Where a case is subject to a discussion which requires repetitions of its name, its full title should be used initially but subsequent references may be abbreviated (and it need not be cited in a footnote each time, except for 'at' page references).

The conventional use of round or square brackets in conjunction with the date of the report should be followed - ie square brackets where the date is an essential part of the report citation but round brackets where the volumes of the series are independently numbered - eg:

R (on the application of Matthews) v BBC [2010] UKSC 4, [2010] Ch 123
Zanza Ltd (t/a Zanzas) v Secretary of State for Health [2016] EWHC (Admin) 4, [2016] 3 All ER 47.
Alpha plc v Williams and Others [2016] EWCA 153 at [17].

ORCID

Legal Studies now requires that all corresponding authors identify themselves using their ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript to the journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:

• Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you’ve authored.
• Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
• Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.

If you don’t already have an iD, you’ll need to create one if you decide to submit a manuscript to Legal Studies. You can register for one directly from your user account on Scholar One or via https://ORCID.org/register. If you already have an iD, please use this when submitting, either by linking it to your Scholar One account or supplying it during submission by using the “Associate your existing ORCID ID” button.

Submission instructions

Once you have prepared your manuscript, please follow the instructions on how to submit your paper via ScholarOne here.

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.