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Submission Guidelines and Policies

The Journal

SLR subscribes to an expansive view of “law and society” and seeks to publish scholarship that goes beyond looking at the law as merely a set of rules and doctrines. As such, we welcome interdisciplinary research that critically enquires into the intersections between the law and the social sciences, especially in the South Asian context.

Please read our full Aims and Scope before making a submission to the Journal.

Categories for Submission

We invite submissions in four distinct categories with indicative word counts as follows:

  • Articles: 5000-10,000 words (these are full-length research papers that consider existing literature and make an original argument, offering a detailed exploration of a specific research question)
  • Notes from the Field: 3000-5000 words (these are brief narratives documenting observations, experiences, or insights by researchers and practitioners during fieldwork that provide a glimpse into ongoing or completed empirical research)
  • Case/Legislative Comment: 3000-5000 words (these are short, critical analyses of a recently pronounced judgement or enacted legislation that are not purely doctrinal but take into account other relevant social and political factors)
  • Book Reviews: 3000-5000 words (these are review essays written by experts in the field of one or more recently published books that contribute to socio-legal studies and speak to the Journal’s Aims and Scope. We do not accept unsolicited reviews. If you would like to submit a book review, please contact us over email. Submissions in this category are also not subject to peer-review)

Submission Guidelines

  1. We allow co-authorship of up to three authors.
  2. All manuscripts must be submitted in the form of a word document.
  3. All personal or institutional information identifying the author must be removed from the manuscript before submission.
  4. Please ensure that your manuscript adheres to the following requirements:
    • Use Garamond, font size 12, 1.5 line spacing, and justified alignment for the main body
    • Use Garamond, font size 12, single line spacing, and justified alignment for the footnotes.
    • SLR follows a system of footnotes. Consult the Oxford Standard Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) 4th Edition to cite sources.
    • Please pin cite the references as far as possible.
    • Use British spelling, in accordance with the Oxford English Dictionary. For example, use ‘labour’ and not ‘labor’, ‘recognise’ and not ‘recognize’, and ‘judgement’ and not ‘judgment’.
    • We encourage the use of short forms. For instance, ‘This paper shall discuss the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (‘the Act’) in detail.’ Please refrain from using terms such as ‘hereinafter’.
    • Please use the Oxford or serial comma wherever possible.
    • All extracts should appear within double quotation marks. Extracts longer than 50 words should be separated from the body by placing them in a separate paragraph, indented on both sides by 1 inch of the margin. No quotation marks should be used for such extracts.

How to Submit?

Please submit your manuscript using the Digital Commons Platform by clicking on Submit Article and following the on-screen instructions. For instructions and clarifications for submissions on the Platform, please refer to this guide. In case of any further queries or concerns, please email us at slr@nls.ac.in.

Editorial Process and Timelines

Socio-Legal Review is committed to the highest standards of editorial and review processes. We adhere to a strict double-anonymised editorial and review policy in which the identity of both the editors/reviewers and the author(s) are always concealed from one another.

First Round: Internal Review (2 weeks)

Upon submission, the manuscript is subject to a preliminary desk review for fitness and quality check. Thereafter, it is independently evaluated by two internal Editors for alignment with the Journal’s Aims and Scope, novelty, structure and language, references, and analysis. If the manuscript passes the editorial evaluation, it is sent back to the author(s) with recommended changes, if any. We are committed to reverting to author(s) with editorial inputs and first round of revisions (if any) within 2 weeks from the date of submission. The author(s) are expected to return a revised manuscript within 3 weeks.

Second Round: Peer Review (3-6 weeks)

If the Editors find that the suggested changes have been satisfactorily incorporated, the revised manuscript (with the exception of Book Reviews) is referred to two external peer-reviewers, who are subject-matter experts, for their comments. This process may take anywhere between 3 to 6 weeks from the receipt of the revised manuscript, depending on the availability of peer reviewers. The peer-reviewers’ comments and the initial decision are communicated to the author(s) for necessary revisions, to be made within 3 weeks of the receipt of comments.

Finalisation and Publication (4 weeks)

After receiving the revised manuscript, the two internal Editors evaluate whether the peer-reviewers’ comments have been satisfactorily addressed. If the revised manuscript is finally accepted, the piece is copy-edited for grammatical and stylistic requirements. Once the author(s) confirm the final set of edits, the manuscript is typeset for publication. The piece may also be published ahead of the print edition as an Advance Article on the Journal’s website, wherever appropriate. This process from the receipt of the revised manuscript to publication may take up to 4 weeks.

Conditions for Publication

Author(s) must be prepared to make necessary changes to their manuscript in response to editorial and peer-review comments. The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject a manuscript at any stage of the review process, including after revisions have been made in response to peer-review comments.

Please note that in the event that a manuscript submitted to SLR has been submitted and accepted by any other Journal, the author must withdraw their submission from SLR. If SLR accepts the manuscript first, the author must withdraw it for consideration from all other Journals. Failure to do so will lead to removal of the piece for consideration for publication in SLR.

The Forum

We invite submissions in the form of short essays and commentary on contemporary developments or issues of persisting relevance that speak to the Aims and Scope of the Journal. We do not accept pieces that consist of purely doctrinal or legal analysis; submissions must dissect the issue using an interdisciplinary lens.

If you have a theme or an idea that you’d like to develop in an essay for the SLR Forum, please get in touch at sociolegalreviewforum@gmail.com. We will be glad to discuss your ideas over email and provide editorial feedback in order to arrive at a better understanding of whether they fit with the objectives of the Forum. However, if you have a fully fleshed out piece, we encourage you to submit it directly.

Please adhere to the following guidelines to make a submission for the Forum

  • We allow co-authorship of up to two authors.
  • All manuscripts must be submitted in the form of a word document by emailing them to sociolegalreviewforum@gmail.com. The subject-line of the email must correspond to the title of the submission.
  • All personal or institutional information identifying the author(s) must be removed from the manuscript before submission.
  • Submissions must range between 800-2500 words
  • Please hyperlink all sources in the main text. Do not use footnotes or endnotes.

The Editorial Board is committed to reverting with editorial comments within two weeks of receiving the submission.

Conditions for Publication

Author(s) must be prepared to make necessary changes to their submission in response to editorial comments. The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject a manuscript at any stage of the review process, including after revisions have been made in response to editorial comments.

Please note that in the event that a contribution submitted to SLR has been submitted and accepted by any other Journal or online platform, the author must withdraw their submission from SLR. If SLR accepts the submission first, the author must withdraw it for consideration from all other Journals and online platforms. Failure to do so will lead to removal of the piece for consideration for publication in the SLR Forum. Please note that SLR Forum does not allow cross-posting of articles.

Copyright and Licensing Policy

Authors contributing to the Socio-Legal Review print journal and online Forum (‘SLR’) retain the copyright to their articles. They agree to publish their article with SLR under a Creative Commons License CC BY-NC 4.0. The terms of this license permit third parties to copy, redistribute, adapt, transform, and build on the article for non-commercial purposes.