Alabama Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review

In its first half-dozen years, the Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review already has built a reputation as a cutting-edge journal, featuring works from scholars such as Anita Allen at the University of Pennsylvania Law School; Joseph Singer from Harvard Law School; Sheryll Cashin from Georgetown Law; and retired federal district court judge U. W. Clemon. Volume 2, a symposium issue, centered on the Rotten Social Background defense in criminal law and included contributions from Angela Harris of the U.C. Davis School of Law and The University of Alabama’s own Professor Richard Delgado. Volume 4 included a piece on race, religion, and terrorism by Tung Yin, a professor at U.C. Berkeley, and Volume 5 includes articles by Robert Tsai of American University’s Washington College of Law and John Martinez of the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law.

Now on lucky volume 13, ACRCL is looking to continue its legacy of excellence. We will be publishing two editions. We are particularly interested in articles that highight the civil rights in fields of law that are not commonly associated with civil rights in the upcoming editions.

Selection Process:

As a law journal, we continually accept unsolicited manuscripts from judges, professors, practitioners, and the occasional exceptional student. We conduct two review cycles: the spring cycle runs from February through April, and the fall cycle runs from July through September.

For the the First Round Review, our Acquisitions Editor screens every submission, cutting articles with topic that are not a good fit for our journal. During the Second Round Review, the Acquistions Editor and Editor in Chief do a more substantive dive into each submission. From there, our editing team conducts a blind review of the manuscript. Upon the recommendation of the reviewing editors, selected manuscripts are reviewed and submitted to a vote by the Managing Board who make the final publication decision.

Expedited Reviews:

We understand that our authors are under deadlines too. We will try to accomodate all requests for expedited review. Please note that while we will make every attempt to review your manuscript by the requested date, our workload might result in a delayed response.

Any publication offer made as a result of an expedited review will remain open for a period of 72 hours.

Manuscript Guidelines:

We strongly prefer manuscripts under 25,000 words (including footnotes). Length in excess of 30,000 words will heavily weigh against selection. Manuscripts under 10,000 words will be reviewed as essays and are welcome.

All manuscripts should be cited in footnotes rather than endnotes, conforming to the requirements of the 21st edition of The Bluebook and the 15th edition of the Texas Law Review Manual on Usage and Style. Our editing team will also review accepted manuscripts for Bluebook and grammar erros.

Alabama Civil Rights and Civil Liberties journal is a proponent of people-first language and the use of the singular “they.”

Electronic Submission:

Please include your manuscript and abstract; curriculum vitae; and a brief cover letter containing your mailing address, phone number, and email address.