American Journal of Trial Advocacy

Direct Submission:

Scholastica:

For more detailed instructions, see below:

Author Guidelines

The American Journal of Trial Advocacy is the nation’s oldest law review dedicated to the art and science of trial advocacy. Accordingly, the Journal categorizes manuscripts by topic and intended audience: articles, commentaries, and trial or courtroom techniques. Commentaries allow authors to discuss controversial topics that may be outside the scope of a full-length article. Articles are thoroughly researched discussions of new theories of law applicable to the trial attorney’s practice. Trial techniques, unique to the Journal, are how-to discussions of proven trial tactics that include supporting case law and other research.

Topic Selection

Submissions should be of practical utility to trial lawyers and judges and provide current information on techniques, strategies, or the law. You may contact an Articles Editor prior to beginning a manuscript in order to avoid overlapping topics. (You can email us or complete our Author Information and Response Form.)

Footnotes

Scholarly writing requires proper citation of authorities for legal assertions. Furthermore, scholarship often benefits from citations to additional materials that may be useful to the reader. The Journal follows the legal citation rules in the most recent edition of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation.

Length

Articles typically range from 7,000 to 15,000 words (20-40 double-spaced pages).  The length of your manuscript ultimately depends upon the nature of your topic and your treatment of it.  Trial Techniques may be shorter in length and contain fewer footnotes.

Co-authorship

A manuscript may be co-authored by more than one legal professional. The Journal also considers submissions written by authors credentialed in other professions when the article highlights that author’s area of expertise. Whenever possible, we encourage inclusion of at least one legal professional as a co-author.

Student authors or co-authors are not published in the Article, Commentary, or Trial Techniques sections of the Journal. Footnotes may be used to acknowledge assistance from students such as law clerks or research assistants. (Note: The Journal reserves publication of student written pieces for Journal members only.)

Copyright

Copyright remains generally with the author, though the Journal retains certain copyright privileges in order to facilitate reproduction on research databanks such as Westlaw and LexisNexis. Authors will be asked to sign an agreement that sets out the terms of publication. The Journal acknowledges the right of authors to use their material in future publication efforts, however. Reprint permissions are freely granted to others upon their proper acknowledgement of the Journal ’s copyright.

Reprints

The Journal furnishes all authors with two copies of the issue in which their article appears, along with an exact PDF of the article. Bound reprints of articles are available to authors at reasonable cost.

Editorial Policy

The general policy of the Journal Editorial Board is to respect the writing style of our authors and make textual revisions only when necessary.  However, the Journal reserves the right to make these necessary changes.  Authors are provided a PDF copy of the manuscript for review just prior to publication.  The Journal reserves the right to accept or deny publication of any manuscript.  Should problems arise regarding publication of an article, the Editors will make every effort to work with an author.

Submission & Format

The Journal currently accepts electronic submissions, in Word or WordPerfect formats, via Scholastica and by direct email with appropriate cover email or letter and author CV.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of the Journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.