Thank you for your interest in contributing to the King’s Student Law Review (KSLR) Forum. We accept submissions on a rolling basis. Please read the following guidelines before submitting an article to us.
Who Can Contribute?
Anyone! We welcome submissions from every level of legal study and practice. All submissions are assessed on their merit alone and subject to a double-blind peer-review process.
The KSLR is an inclusive space and, since KSLR Forum articles are shorter than KSLR Journal papers, it is an ideal forum for your first academic publication. We particularly welcome submissions from:
- PhD researchers,
- Taught and research masters students,
- Recent law graduates,
- Junior lawyers working in legal practice,
- Early career academics.
Guidelines for Contributions:
The KSLR Forum is not a blog: we do not consider opinion pieces or articles which are journalistic, rather than academic, in style. To this end, we consider, inter alia:
- Articles in response to KSLR Journal papers – find the most recent edition of the KSLR Journal here;
- Case notes;
(You can write to us at kslr.forum@gmail.com to reserve a case in advance. Cases will be reserved for 10 days after judgment is handed down, at which point, if no submission is received, the case will be reallocated.) - Analysis of recently enacted or impending legislation;
- Analysis of impending policy or regulatory developments/amendments.
Areas of Law
Your article should be relevant to our readership which is wide since King’s is a diverse institution with a global outlook.
However, there is naturally an emphasis on topics of relevance to those studying and working in the UK. Consequently,we are usually unable to accept submissions focussed mainly on non-UK or non-EU jurisdictions unless the piece has a substantial comparative element to UK or EU law. Here, ‘substantial’ means there must be equal analysis of both jurisdictions.
Submissions pertaining to international law must be in keeping with the specialisms of The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London. Examples include, but are not limited to, international commercial law and international human rights law.
If you are uncertain as to whether your subject area fits our submission guidance please ask advice from kslr.forum@gmail.com
Length: 500-1,500 words. Submissions longer than 1,800 words will not be considered – please submit longer articles to the KSLR Journal (calls for papers will be advertised on the website and Twitter @KCLSLR).
Referencing: Any online open access sources must be referenced using in-text hyperlinks instead of OSCOLA footnotes (but only to legal or respected news sources and the editors make the final decision as to what constitutes a respectable source). If sources are neither online nor open access, please reference using OSCOLA footnotes in the usual way. Please use single quotation marks (not double) and italicise Latin words and phrases.
Clarity: Posts should be clear and concise and be written in the style of legal academic scholarship. We do not publish journalistic blog or opinion pieces.
Title: Posts should have informative titles. (This facilitates search engines to ensure your article reaches as wide an audience as possible.)
Originality: Posts should reflect original, unpublished work. They should not have been published, or be under consideration for publication, elsewhere.
Coursework: We have a strong presumption against publishing material based on coursework where it concerns cases or questions already extensively analysed in the literature. An exception would be made for genuinely new analysis or argument.
Style: Please refer to the style guidance on the Journal submissions page for guidance on UK spelling, formatting and use of UK English.
Cross-posting: Cross-posting or publication on other platforms is permissible only:
- Provided that the author acknowledges first publication in the KSRL Forum;
- With the permission of the Editors of the KSLR Forum; and
- A minimum of 48 hours after the post has been published on the KSLR Forum.
How to Contribute
We’d be delighted to receive your submission!
Please email submissions to kslr.forum@gmail.com, and include in the subject line your article’s title. In the text of the email, please include:
- Author(s) name(s) and affiliation(s)
- Confirmation that the article is your own work, unpublished and not under consideration at another publication.
Note: Please do not send abstracts or proposals, as we will not be able to tell from this whether your post meets the Forum’s requirements.
The Editors may, in their absolute discretion, waive any of the above rules or amend this process.
We pride ourselves on the high quality of our Forum articles and will not publish a post if we are not satisfied that it is of sufficiently high quality, both in terms of presentation and argument. If you feel unable to accept the Editor’s proposals after discussion, or do not wish to participate in the editorial process, then you are free to withdraw your submission.
Editorial Process – Double Blind Peer Review
- Receipt of submission confirmed within 7 days.
- If a submission is rejected, the Editors will provide brief feedback. If the Editors consider that your post has potential to be published, but is not currently of the required standard, they will send the article to a Reviewer for first blind-peer review.
- The Editors will then decide whether the submission is to be rejected or accepted with major/minor corrections. This takes around 14 days. Authors are usually required to make any major/minor corrections within 7 days.
- The submission is then sent for a second blind-peer review. Repeat of step 3.
- A definitive decision as to publication is made by the Editors upon receipt of the final edited draft. If the article is to be published, you will be informed and the Editors will send your article to a Proofreader.
- Once the author has accepted the Proofreader’s changes, the article will be published on the Forum.
The KSLR is run by postgraduate researchers at King’s College London. We rely on the expertise of our Reviewers who are PhD researchers and, as such, responses may take longer at times, eg during the marking season. Otherwise, the above represents maximum timescales and we aim to minimise this, particularly where a post covers a very recent or urgent issue. The Editors will communicate timescales to authors in a timely fashion.
Dialogue and Promotion
The KSLR Forum aims to stimulate dialogue and debate, so once your post is published please watch for comments and enter into the discussion. To expand your readership, we also encourage you to share your post with colleagues through email and social media sites.
Contributor’s Agreement
By submitting a post to the Forum, the Contributor guarantees that the post is a product of their work and is unpublished. Contributors also permit the KSLR Forum to use their post, with full attribution but without further consent, on a non-commercial basis in online and offline publications.