Submissions

The Journal is distinct from most American law reviews in several ways. Some of those distinctions impact submissions.  

Exclusivity – First-Right of Refusal Requirement 

To be published with the Journal all submissions must be exclusive to the Journal. The Journal will have first right-of-refusal before the submission may be sent to any other journal. The Journal accepts submissions on a rolling basis and will inform contributors whether their submission will advance to peer review within two weeks of the Student Selection Committee’s decision to ensure timely publication and distribution. 

Submission Requirements 

The Journal accepts articles, essays, book reviews, and creative scholarly works that pertain to the broad mission of ‘advancing justice’.  

The submission should be well-researched and properly cited where appropriate. While there is no required word count, the Journal strongly prefers written submissions under 25,000 words. The Journal publishes all citations in conformity with the current version of the Bluebook. Submissions must either conform to the Bluebook citation format or provide all of the source information necessary for editors to change the citation to the Bluebook style. Note that the Bluebook citation format generally differs from other professional styles in requiring a “pincite” or page number showing where the author’s assertion may be referenced in the source material. 

A submitted article, essay, or book review should follow the following format requirements: 

• Century Schoolbook or Times New Roman 
• 12-point font 
• 10-point font for citations 
• Single-spaced 
• 1-inch margins on all sides 
• Word documents only, no PDFs 
• 400-word abstract  
• A cover page with the author’s name, professional title, and educational history
• All submitted articles shall be written in English 

While the Journal’s primary focus is written, scholarly work, the Journal accepts creative work submissions that pertain to the Journal’s mission.  

Preliminary Screening Process 

1. All submissions to the Journal will be anonymized by a Student Submissions Editor.  
2. The Student Selections Committee—a three-student panel—blind reviews submissions and votes for acceptance or rejection. A simple majority is required for an article to progress to the next screening phase. 
3. The Student Submissions Editor assigns the article for blind peer review by at least two members of the Peer Review Panel. The assigned peer reviewers shall each make one of the following recommendations: accept, accept with conditions, reject, or resubmit with comments. 
4. The Journal’s editorial board (consisting of the Faculty Editorial Board and the Student Editorial Board) shall make a final decision concerning the submission and communicate that decision to the author in a timely manner. The editorial board shall weigh the peer reviewers’ recommendations heavily, but shall not be required to accept the peer reviewers’ recommendations.  

If at any point the submission does not pass through a point in the submission and review process, the author will be notified in a timely manner. There is a possibility that the submission will be rejected with a recommendation that the author resubmit after a period of substantive edits. There is also the possibility of a conditional publication offer, wherein the Journal will request the author address specific issues in the submission before the editorial and publication process begins.  

Editorial Policy

The Nebraska Journal on Advancing Justice reviews and edits all submissions before they are published on the Journal’s website and submitted to repositories. This Editorial Process consists of cooperation between the Student Editorial Board and the Peer Review Panel.  

Summary of Editing Process 

1. Submissions Editor and the Submissions Selection Committee

The Submissions Editor manages each submission in the first half of the submission’s processing. The Submissions Editor anonymizes the submissions and advances them to the Submissions Selection Committee, which approves or denies sending a submission to peer review.

1. Peer Review Panel 

The Peer Review Panel consists of scholars from multiple disciplines. They review the coherence of the arguments, the reliability of the sources cited, and the quality of the scholarship demonstrated.  

3. Author Edit 

If an article is accepted for publication, any suggestions will be sent to the author for their review to make minor changes before entering our editorial process. If an article is rejected, authors will be notified and provided with peer review feedback, when available. Rejected submissions may be resubmitted. 

4. Preparation for Publication

The Student Editorial Board ensures citations conform to the current version of the Bluebook. Authors are responsible for ensuring their citations are accurate. Articles will be deanonymized and the Executive Editors will work directly with the author to implement further line edits, verify specific assertions, and ensure that the sources referenced support the author’s assertions. 

• Century Schoolbook or Times New Roman 
• 12-point font 
• 10-point font for citations 
• Single-spaced 
• 1-inch margins on all sides 
• Word documents only, no PDFs 
• 400-word abstract  
• Cover page which includes the author’s name, professional title, and educational history 
• All submitted articles shall be written in English