SJEL has partnered with the Washington Lawyers for Sustainability (WLS) and Washington Journal for Environmental Law & Policy to host a sustainability symposium on April 20, 2012, at Seattle University. The event will focus on making sustainability legal, economically viable, and socially just. Presenters and speakers will include professors, practitioners, and elected officials.
Submissions:
The Seattle Journal of Environmental Law publishes articles and essays on timely and important issues in natural resources law, energy and sustainability, environmental policy, law and economics, international environmental law, and other topics relating to law and the environment.
We publish on a rolling basis, and we anticipate publication of an article within six to eight weeks after receiving a manuscript. All pieces published in SJEL are critically reviewed in multiple editing rounds by a dedicated and energetic team of student editors.
Authors interested in submitting manuscripts of articles for publication should contact SJEL at the earliest possible date. SJEL accepts manuscripts year-round on an ongoing basis, and there is no formal deadline for publication in a given issue.
Length Limits and Format:
SJEL will give preference to articles between 6,000–8,000 words in length including text and footnotes, in order to promote a narrow discussion of a contemporary topic. SJEL will also publish longer articles at the discretion of the Executive Board.
Text and citations should conform to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (19th ed. 2010).
Article Selection Process:
As SJEL accepts submissions year round, we finalize our selections on a revolving basis. The review process is generally slower during the summer.
Submissions should be submitted electronically via Express. Authors may also send electronic submissions to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it – emailed submissions must be in Microsoft Word.
Upon submitting your article to SJEL, the Executive Content Development Editor will notify you by email that we have received your article. The review process typically takes two to three weeks. If you receive one or more offers from another journal and would like an expedited review of your article, please email the Executive Content Development Editor with the name of the other journal and its deadline for your response. Expedited review does not provide any greater likelihood that your article will be accepted, but may speed up the review process.
Editing Process:
If a manuscript is chosen for publication, SJEL will send authors a contract by which they transfer copyright to SJEL. A Lead Article Editor is assigned to each article and a team of Member and Associate Editors works with the LAE during each round of the editing process, including substantive and technical edits to the text and citations. If your piece cites materials that are difficult to find (such as unpublished or foreign materials, among others), we will expect you to mail a copy of them upon your acceptance of our offer. Our editing process is done entirely electronically, via email, using the Track Changes feature in Word.