The Queen’s Law Journal publishes original academic work on all areas of law. We take a comprehensive view of legal scholarship—in addition to traditional legal writing, we publish articles crossing the boundary between law and the social sciences.

We accept academic articles, book reviews, case comments, and essays, and welcome submissions from both experienced and novice writers. 

Submissions Deadlines

The Queen’s Law Journal accepts submissions on a rolling basis—there are no submission deadlines. Submissions will be considered for the next upcoming issue with available space.

The editing process for the Fall issue begins in September, with publication in January. For the Spring issue, editing begins in January, with publication in May.

Given these time frames, and the fact that the submissions process takes approximately 3 to 5 months, generally, articles submitted between October and May will be considered for the upcoming Fall issue and articles submitted between June and September will be considered for the upcoming Spring issue.

These timelines are only guidelines and are subject to the number of articles already accepted for publication in a given issue, and the publication of special issues. 

Submissions Guidelines

Manuscripts should generally be in the order of 10,000 words and up to 15,000 words, including footnotes. We will review manuscripts which exceed this limit; however, publication of these articles would be conditional on the production of a final draft which has fewer than 15,000 words, including footnotes.

Submitted manuscripts should include an abstract of around 250 to 500 words. Authors should also provide a short statement indicating their occupation and place of work, as well as any acknowledgments they would like to include. These will not count towards the word limit.

Citations must conform with the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, 10th edition (the McGill Guide).

Submissions Process

The submissions process, from receipt of submission to offer of publication, takes approximately 3 to 5 months. The submissions process is as follows:

  1. Articles must be submitted by email to the Managing Editors of Submissions at qlj@queensu.ca.
  2. The Managing Editors of Submissions will confirm receipt of submission with the author.
  3. The Submissions Committee, comprised of the Managing Editors of Submissions and Submissions Editors, will conduct an internal review and recommend one of either: external review; external review with revision recommendations; or rejection. This process takes around 1 month.
  4. An internal review report is submitted to the Editors-in-Chief and the Faculty Advisors for their review of the recommendation of the Submissions Committee. This process takes between 1 and 2 weeks.
  5. The Managing Editors of Submissions will communicate the final internal review decision to the author.
  6. If the submission proceeds to external review, the Managing Editors of Submissions will secure external reviewers. The external review process is double-blind. Reviewers are selected based on their expertise in the subject-area of the submission. This process takes between 1 and 3 months, depending on reviewer availability.
  7. On the basis of the external reviewer reports, the Editors-in-Chief and the Faculty Advisors will decide whether to extend an offer of publication.
  8. The Managing Editors of Submissions will communicate the publication decision to the author and provide them with blinded copies of the external reviewer reports.
  9. Where a publication offer has been extended, the author will be given the opportunity to conduct a final edit of their submission before the article is turned over to the editing team.

For more information or to submit an article, please contact the Managing Editors of Submissions at: qlj@queensu.ca