Submissions to Albany Law Review
The Albany Law Review publishes four issues per year. Editors for each issue review submissions year-round, though many will make publication offers in March or April for the first two issues and late summer for the final two issues.
Selection Criteria
The journal publishes work that makes significant and original contributions to the law and legal scholarship. Consequently, article acceptance turns primarily on the quality and novelty of the topic, and the clarity and coherence of the author’s work. All articles submitted should be of publishable quality and in substantially finished form.
Submission Guidelines & Requirements
Length: We generally publish article-length manuscripts (40-70 pages), though the journal does not have an official page-cap policy. Length judged to be excessive will weigh against selection. Essays (20-40 pages) and book reviews will be considered on a limited basis.
Format: All articles should be submitted as editable Microsoft Word documents. Text should be double spaced. Note that Albany Law Review edits text according to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (21st ed. 2020) and, where the Bluebook is silent, the Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed. 2017).
Citations: Citations must substantially conform to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (21st ed. 2020). Manuscripts should use footnotes and not endnotes.
Authorship: We welcome unsolicited manuscripts from practitioners, academics, jurists, policymakers, and students.
Sources: Most sources should be accessible through law library holdings, electronic databases (e.g., LexisNexis, Westlaw, Hein), or by way of interlibrary loan. Authors will be required to submit forthcoming, “on file with author,” or other inaccessible unique sources (e.g., historical trial transcripts) upon acceptance of the journal’s offer to publish.
Selection Process
Screening: Due to the number of manuscripts Albany Law Review receives, a submissions editor will screen manuscripts based on the topic, quality of writing, use of authority, citations, adherence to the journal’s submission requirements, space available in the volume or in the production schedule, and any other considerations requested by the Executive Editors of each issue, the Executive Managing Editor(s), or the Editor-in-Chief.
Decision: After screening, the submissions editor sends an article to the Executive Editor for the issue most relevant to the paper’s topic, who will thoroughly review it and render a decision. The Executive Editor may, in some instances, send an article to an Executive Editor for another issue of Albany Law Review for their consideration.
Additional Review: At any stage of the process, an Executive Editor may request additional review of a manuscript by other editors and members of Albany Law Review, or members of the law school faculty.
Notification: While Albany Law Review strives to notify all authors of their work’s review status, the volume of submissions forces us to prioritize contacting authors of accepted manuscripts.
Expedited Review
If another journal has offered to publish your article, you may request an expedited review by submitting an expedite request in Scholastica. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that expedited review deadlines will be met; however, please be assured that we will take all reasonable measures to review submissions within the specified time constraints.
Editorial Philosophy
Through editing, Albany Law Review seeks to ensure the substantive and grammatical correctness of every line published. We will never attempt to alter the “voice” of a piece or its author. Any and all editorial changes made will be finally agreed upon by the author prior to publication.