Article & Essay Submissions
The Elder Law Journal welcomes the submission of articles. Each issue consists of three parts pertaining to elder law topics: a lead, student notes, and a recent development/essay section. The first section of The Elder Law Journal consists of articles and essays from professors, judges, practicing attorneys, and distinguished professionals. The second major division of The Elder Law Journal is the student section. This section contains student notes of varying lengths prepared by members and editors. A third section of The Elder Law Journal contains short pieces concerning recent developments in elder law. Not every issue has a Recent Developments section, though certain submissions lend themselves to this category. For past issues, view our Archives page.
All manuscripts should conform to the following standards:
Submission
We encourage all authors to submit their manuscripts electronically via email (law-elderlaw@illinois.edu) or Scholastica. Scholastica is an online service that streamlines the submission process by allowing you to send manuscripts to multiple journals for a fee.
Alternatively, you may submit a hard copy by mail to:
Articles Editors
The Elder Law Journal
University of Illinois College of Law
504 E. Pennsylvania Avenue
Champaign, IL 61820
Unsolicited hard copies of manuscripts cannot be returned unless a return envelope with sufficient postage accompanies the submission.
Length Limitations
The Elder Law Journal has adopted the length requirement reflected in a statement from eleven of the leading law journals in the United States. It is our policy to encourage authors to submit articles that do not exceed a length of 37,000 words. An effective article need not approach this upper limit. An important guideline is to make sure the article thoroughly covers the topic while explaining all relevant concepts and leaving no questions unanswered.
How to Format Your Submission
The Elder Law Journal uses the Bluebook (21st edition) for citations and The Chicago Manual of Style for content. We will look past odd formatting, typographical errors, and messy citations if the paper exudes brilliance. Faced with two papers that have similar content, however, we will choose the one that is easier to edit.
ELJ’s Footnote Guide can be downloaded here.
ELJ’s Style Guide can be downloaded here.
Bluebook 101 (from University of Washington) can be found here.
When to Submit
Consideration is given on a rolling basis. The number of submissions we can accept for publication will vary on the number of articles we receive for consideration and the length of those articles. Therefore, as a general guideline:
For full consideration for the spring issue, please submit your materials to us by September 1, 2023.
For full consideration for the fall issue, please submit your materials to us by February 1, 2024.
Missed the deadline? No worries, join our alert list and you will get an email notification when we are officially accepting new submissions.
Expedited Reviews
We will conduct expedited reviews for articles with publication offers from other journals. So that we are able to appropriately respond to such requests, please specify that you need expedited consideration and the offer deadline from the other journal(s).
A Note on ELJ Student Notes
The Elder Law Journal publishes a limited selection of Notes written by students in each publication. This opportunity is exclusive to The Elder Law Journal members. To learn about how to become a member, please view our membership page. To learn more about the student note process, view our resources page for members.
New to Writing for a Journal?
Never fear! We love working with new writers. Here are some resources to get you started:
Academic Legal Writing by Eugene Volokh (includes an article template and PowerPoint slides) can be found here.
Need a Topic? Check out our Archives for inspiration and then our Resources page to get you started on your research journey!