As members of the UIC faculty, UIC Law faculty are bound to follow the University of Illinois Policy on Open Access to Research Articles. This policy obligates all University of Illinois faculty to deposit electronic copies of their published articles in an open-access online repository unless a waiver is obtained as described in the policy.
The purpose of this guide is to provide information on the law review submissions process (including the use of Scholastica); the University of Illinois's open access to scholarship mandate; UIC digital publishing options for UIC Law faculty; the retention of author's rights; scholarly visibility; and more specifically, how to use ORCID, HeinOnline, Google Scholar, and SSRN to enhance scholarly visibility.
Law journals/reviews generally have two submission windows: a spring submission cycle in February and March, and a fall submission cycle in August. The materials linked below offer more information on the timing of these cycles as well as any deviations.
Martha Minow and Susannah Barton Tobin of Harvard Law School have published a helpful article that provides guidance on producing various types of legal scholarship, such as analyzing policy, assessing legal institutions, and restating doctrine. Minow and Tobin also include examples of each kind of scholarship:
Martha Minow and Susannah Barton Tobin, "Archetypal Legal Scholarship: A Field Guide, 2d Edition," Journal of Legal Education 71, no. 3 (2022): 494–502. https://jle.aals.org/home/vol71/iss3/7/.
Methods for submitting an article (such as by e-mail, Scholastica, or regular mail)
Any special formatting requirements
How to request an expedited review
How to withdraw an article after it has been accepted for publication elsewhere
Bridget J. Crawford, Professor of Law at the Elisabeth Staub School of Law (Pace University), has compiled detailed information on submitting essays, commentaries, reviews, responses, and other writings to online "companions" to the main law reviews and journals at over 60 schools.
Scholastica is a law review submissions service through which scholars may manage and track article submissions to multiple journals online. UIC Law will cover the cost of Scholastica submissions for each faculty member up to their allotment for the academic year. (Each faculty member receives a Scholastica allotment as part of their professional development budget in August.) Accordingly, faculty should act strategically when determining where to submit their manuscripts. If a law review accepts direct submissions, then there is no need to submit through Scholastica.
See at left for law school rankings and the Rostron and Levit article above, which provides a comprehensive guide to submission methods, requirements, and contact information for approximately 200 law reviews and journals.
For detailed instructions on using Scholastica, see the "Scholastica Law Review Author Guide," which is linked from the box below.
UIC Law faculty who have questions regarding their use of Scholastica should contact Professor Steven Schwinn, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, who can be reached at schwinn@uic.edu.
This guide was based on the content of similar guides created by Sandy De Groote at UIC's Daley Library, Jaime Valenzuela at the University of Arizona, and the legal reference librarians at Arizona State University. Parts of this guide were also adapted from descriptions of ORCID iDs (University of Arizona Libraries), Scholarship and Scholarly Impact (University of Wisconsin Law School Library), and Create a Google Scholar Profile (University of Oklahoma Libraries).
