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 does not require a specific citation format, so long as citations contain the appropriate information and are internally consistent. During the editorial process, student editors will ensure each piece conforms to Bluebook citation format. 

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  
• Cover page which includes 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, such as poetry, short stories, and visual art, that pertains 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 Research 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 conditional publication that will request the article fix a small issue before the publication process begins.  

Licensing Agreement 

Soon after your submission has been accepted, the author will receive a licensing agreement which much be completed prior to publication.  

Publication Draft Due Date 

Upon acceptance of an offer to publish a submission, the Editor-in-Chief or Managing Editor will set a submission deadline for the author’s final draft of the manuscript. The author must submit a ‘publication ready’ version of the submission by this time. Publication ready means that the submission must be fully formed, properly cited, and support the arguments asserted.  

Final Publication 

Once there is a final return of a submission, the Student Editorial Board and the Faculty Editor-in-Chief  will do one final round of reviews and final preparations before the Article will be published. The Journal publications will be sent to all major repositories. The Journal will also promote the article on social media. 

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. Student Editorial Board  

The Student Editorial Board will convert citations will be to Bluebook formatting when necessary. Authors are responsible for ensuring their citations are accurate. Unlike a traditional law review, the Student Editorial Board will not check citations or review the evidentiary support from the citations.  

2. Peer Review Panel 

In this phase of the screening process, the Peer Review Panel will review the coherency 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 publication. If an article is rejected, authors will be notified, provided with peer review feedback, and are invited to resubmit an edited version of the article. 

4. Final Screening 

At this stage, articles will be deanonymized. When necessary, the Executive Editor will review any minor post-feedback author edits prior to publication. If further edits are needed, the Executive Editor will work directly with the author. 

• 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