No More “Exploding Offers” From 16 Law Reviews

16 law reviews, most of them very elite, pledge  to  give authors at least 7  days  to accept or reject an offer of publications. Here is the opening paragraph from their joint letter:

In recent years, many law journals have adopted the practice of issuing “exploding offers”—giving scholars only a couple of days, hours, or even minutes to accept an offer of publication. The reasoning behind these offers was simple: we each hoped to secure the best articles for our own journal before others could identify them and make competing offers. But experience has made clear that the costs of this practice—to the quality of our deliberations, to the faculty with whom we work, and, ultimately, to the scholarship we publish dramatically outweigh the benefits. We therefore commit, effective immediately, to give every author at least seven days to decide whether to accept any offer of publication.

The  signatories are:

Boston University Law Review

Harvard Law Review

Minnesota Law Review

Stanford Law Review

University of Chicago Law Review

William and Mary Law Review

Yale Law Journal

Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law

Review

Harvard Environmental Law Review

Harvard Human Rights Journal

Harvard International Law Journal

Harvard Journal on Law and Gender

Harvard Journal on Legislation

Harvard Latino Law Review

Harvard Law and Policy Review

Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 

In my experience with lesser renown, but still excellent journals, it is not difficult to get  one-to-two-weeks in which to make a commitment. Here is the letter.

(ljs)