The call for papers for the Volume XIV Issue II is now CLOSED.
How to submit:
1. Check that your article complies with both the submission and style guidance (see below).
If your article does not comply with our submission and/or style guidance, it will not be sent for peer review.
2. Email your submission as a Word document to kclstudentlawreview@gmail.com
- Please include in the subject line your article’s title and your name.
- Please state in your email where you are studying/working, and include a statement to the effect that the submission is all the work of the named authors, that you have any other authors’ permission to submit to us, and that the submission is not being considered by, nor has it been submitted to, any other journal.
- Make sure that the email address you send your article from will be functional throughout 2023-2024.
- In order to ensure the integrity of the blind review, your manuscript must not contain your name, university or any other means that can be used to identify you.
- Please ensure that your submission is in the format of Microsoft Word (.doc) or (.docx). We do not accept PDFs.
SUBMISSION GUIDANCE
We are looking to publish original contributions to legal studies, particularly those that are topical/timely. This could be a Research Article, a Case Note or a Book Review.
Your article should be relevant to those studying or practising law in the UK and, in particular, to those based at King’s. This is a broad area, since King’s is a diverse institution with a global outlook; a list of subject areas is given below. It includes submissions on international law, EU law and human rights law, and comparative pieces focussed substantially on UK or EU law. We are, however, generally unable to accept submissions focussed mainly on non-UK/non-EU jurisdictions unless the piece has a substantial comparative element (Substantial would mean that similar depth of analysis was applied to the comparative element as to the jurisdiction of your interest.)
Your article should fall within one of the following areas of law:
- Business Law
- Commercial Law
- Comparative Law
- Competition Law
- Constitutional Law
- Criminal Law
- EU Law
- Family Law
- Financial Law
- Human Rights Law
- Intellectual Property Law
- Jurisprudence
- Legal History
- Legal Theory
- Medical Law
- Private International Law
- Private Law
- Property Law
- Public and Constitutional Law
- Public International Law
- Tax Law
- Technology Law
- Tort Law
- Legal History
- Legal Philosophy (but we do not publish on moral and political philosophy that is only distantly related to law)
Please note, we will not publish articles on subject areas that are beyond our focus and expertise.
If you are unsure whether a topic is suitable, please get in touch via our email address: kclstudentlawreview@gmail.com. However, an indication that a topic may be suitable does not amount to advance acceptance of the article. Like most journals, we do not approve articles in advance of seeing the full article.
Case Notes must concern recent cases. (Recent would mean the decision was released within the past year.)
A Book Review should not merely summarise the contents of the book under review. Rather, a Book Review should offer a critique of the book under review and explain how the book under review is situated within the existing literature.
Your article should be of interest to the general reader who may not be an expert in the field of the article.
Please note that we do not publish work that has been previously submitted as as coursework or a dissertation. An exception may be made for genuinely new analysis or argument, but this is at the discretion of the Editorial Board. Undergraduate work is unlikely to meet this threshold.
We do not publish articles where the primary focus is a subject other than Law (eg. Sociology, Criminology, Politics, History, Economics etc).
STYLE GUIDANCE
Research Articles must be between 4,000 – 6,000 words excluding the footnotes (footnotes, whilst not limited, should not generally add more than a further 25%) and the abstract.
Case Notes must be between 2,000 – 4,000 words excluding the footnotes (footnotes, whilst not limited, should not generally add more than a further 25%) and the abstract.
Book reviews must be between 2,000 – 2,500 words excluding the footnotes (footnotes, whilst not limited, should not generally add more than a further 25%)
If your submission is 1,500 words or less it maybe suitable for submission to our Forum – see HERE.
All articles must be written in UK English. Please spellcheck for UK (not US) English.
If UK English is not the author’s first language, please consider having the manuscript checked for use of English before submission.
All articles should be accompanied by an abstract of not more than 150 words in length, identifying the focus of the article and summarising the contribution which it makes.
Referencing should conform to OSCOLA standards. A PDF guide to OSCOLA is available HERE.
Font should be Times New Roman, font size 12.
Paragraphs
Start flush left after headings.
Title
Centred. Capitalise Main Words. Bold text.
Once accepted, the Author’s name will appear, centred, below the title, in italic text.
The Author’s affiliation will be added as a linked reference.
Main Subheading
Centred. Bold. Precede by Roman I, II, III etc., if required
Second level Subheading
Centred. Bold. Type with initial capitals for main words. Precede by A, B, etc. if required.
Third level Subheading
Flush left. Bold. Precede by Arabic numbering 1, 2, etc., if required.
Quotations
Quotations of more than c.50 words (unless in footnotes) should be indented and set off from the text without quotation marks.
Otherwise, double quotation marks should be used. Quotations within quotations should use single marks. The footnote indicator should be placed after the quotation.
Punctuation marks
Punctuation marks should be outside closing quotation marks except for an exclamation mark, question mark, dash or parenthesis belonging only to the quotation, or a full point at the end of a grammatically complete sentence beginning with a capital letter. Full stops should be outside closing parentheses.
Footnote indicators in the text follow punctuation marks.
Capitals should be used when a specific reference is intended: the Act, the Bill, the Government (but government and industry), Parliament (but parliamentary). Unless the writer is referring to a court by name (e.g. the Supreme Court), “court” should not have a capital.
Abbreviations
No full points should be used with abbreviations consisting of initials (EC, USA). Otherwise full points are retained (ch., Dr.,Ltd.,)
Dates
Use the style ’16 September 2020′.
Numerals
If below 10, these should be spelt out. E.g. ‘the three judges’.
Latin (and other non-English words)
Latin (and other non-English words) should be italicised.
Illustrations, Figures and Tables
These should only be included if essential to the manuscript’s content and should be placed within the body of the text. You will be asked to confirm that you have permission to publish any such materials.
What to expect
Once you have submitted your article, we will aim to respond as quickly as possible, and usually within 7 days, advising either
- That your article does not meet our submission/style guidance
or - That your article has been sent for double-blind peer review
Your article will then be assessed through a double-blind peer-review procedure. This typically takes about 21 working days, although during busy periods and exam periods we may need to extend this. The review process will be managed by one of our Managing Editors (Journal).
If our Reviewers reject your submission, we will communicate this decision and provide brief feedback. If they consider that your article has the potential to be published with minor/major amendments, we will send back your work with a summary of changes required and more detailed suggestions/comments in tracked changes. Please note that this does not amount to acceptance of the article, which is conditional upon satisfactory progress through the review process. This is intended to be constructive and collaborative. You will be given time to make changes to your article (10 working days minor amendments / 15 working days major amendments) and return it to us.
A single Reviewer will review your revised article to determine whether the changes made are satisfactory or whether further changes are needed before the article is substantively ready for publication. It is not unusual for articles to undergo two or three rounds of revisions. You will be given 5 working days to make any further changes and return your article to us. One of our Managing Editors (Journal) will assess the changes made after the first round.
Once your article is substantively ready for publication, it will be sent to a Proofreader to review. Their job is to check the written English and formatting of footnotes prior to publication.
Once the Proofreader has completed their review, you will be sent a copy of their proofread version to approve within 3 working days. (It is possible that you may have to address some very minor formatting points, such as missing pinpoints or broken links.)
Once you have approved the proofread version, your article will undergo a final proofread by one of our Managing Editors.Your article will then be sent to the Editor-In-Chief who will format your article ready for publication on the KSLR website. The Editor-In-Chief will send you a sample/proof to check before publication.
Your article will then be published on our website in the next edition. The Journal publishes twice a year and does not normally publish articles between editions (although the Editorial Board reserve the right to do so in exceptional circumstances).
Contributor’s Agreement
- By submitting an article to the KSLR, the Contributor guarantees that the manuscript is a product of their work and is unpublished.
- Any work originating from others, must be properly identified and referenced.
- Contributors also permit the KSLR to use their article, with full attribution but without further consent, on a non-commercial basis in online and offline publications.
- Contributors may to enter into separate, additional distribution arrangements regarding work already published in the KSLR, provided a Non-Exclusive Licence is given to the subsequent distributor, and the Contributor expressly acknowledges in writing, in any subsequent publication, that their manuscript was first published in the King’s Student Law Review.
Privacy Statement
Your name, email address and other personal information submitted to the Law Review will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of the KSLR and will not be made available for any other purpose or to third parties.