About the Journal

Focus and Scope

JLL focuses on the interdependence of language and law in society and its various facets. This includes theory of law and language, translation and intercultural issues, legal interpretation, law, media and literature, forensic linguistics, as well as applied issues like authorship attribution, language in the courtroom and computational aspects.

Peer Review Process

Research articles go through a two-step review process:

1. Editorial Peer-Review. The managing editor first reviews each manuscript to see if it meets the basic requirements and addresses issues that are relevant for the readership. This usually takes 1-2 weeks, after which authors are informed whether their submission is sent out for external peer-review. Simultaneously, the editor-in-chief reviews the article according to the same standards provided to external reviewers.
   
   
2. External Peer-Review. While being reviewed by the editor-in-chief, blinded manuscripts are also sent out to two experts in the respective field. Those reviewers are asked to commit within a week to whether they will provide a review within six weeks. Following the review, authors receive copies of the reviewers’ comments and the decision.

Peer-review assesses the merits of a contribution on the grounds of originality, relevance, thoroughness, methodology and style, and results in one of three decisions: acceptance, acceptance pending changes, or rejection. Where reviewers disagree, the editor-in-chief has the deciding say. Rejected articles are generally invited for resubmission, where authors are expected to address reviewers’ concerns. It is up to the editor-in-chief to relay resubmissions for external peer-review to one of the former reviewers as well as a new reviewer. If a resubmission is rejected, it may not be submitted to the journal again.

JLL strives to keep the time from submission to publication to a minimum. In the spirit of open access publishing, immediate access to research findings is one of the most important concerns for the Journal. Its editorial team is committed to quick turnaround, its reviewers are expected to reply timely and without undue delay.

Publication, Periodicity and Archiving

JLL articles are each published with a unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI), and backed up through secondary publication in the HeinOnline Law Journal Library.

JLL volumes are collated yearly (starting 2012) from articles that are published as soon as possible after submission. For details, see the previous paragraph (Review Policy).

Open Access Policy

As a platinum Open Access journal, JLL satisfies the Fair Open Access Principles, meaning it is entirely free of charge to both authors and readers, lets authors retain copyright in their contributions, and provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

The benefits of Open Access for authors, other stakeholders and society are well-documented. JLL is wholly committed to the principle of Open as advocated by the Open Knowledge Foundation, and the selection criteria of the Free Journal Network (FJN), which accepted JLL as a member in 2018. See the Copyright Notice for details on the JLL license.

Form follows function: The journal is typeset in Alegreya fonts, an award-winning font family designed by Juan Pablo del Peral from a young collaborative type foundry in Argentina. Alegreya fonts are available under the Open Font License and reinforce JLL's commitment to openness.

Scientific Integrity

JLL subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

JLL aspires to select and publish highest-quality research through a thorough and fair peer-review process. The journal expects its authors and reviewers to honour scientific integrity as a basic requirement of any well-functioning academic system.

JLL requires authors and reviewers to expressly declare if they have any competing interests with regard to their respective contribution. Please consult the PLOS Competing Interests Policy if unsure what to declare.

Research misconduct (including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication) will result in immediate rejection of articles. If revealed post-publication, affected articles will be retracted and authors excluded from future consideration. Reviewers will be likewise sanctioned if found to engage in scientific misconduct. Should a competing interests declaration found to be false, the Editorial Board will take appropriate measures.

Should the authors discover fundamental errors in a published text, they should notify the editors and contribute to a corrected version or erratum. In serious cases, the article may be withdrawn by the editors.

The editors reserve the right to retract already published texts or to draw other consequences if scientific misconduct on the part of those involved in the editorial process becomes known. Complaints and information regarding ethical misconduct should be addressed to Prof. Dr. Friedemann Vogel (friedemann.vogel@uni-siegen.de).

Journal History

JLL was established as "Language & Law" in 2012 by Lawrence M. Solan, Dieter Stein, and Peter M. Tiersma. The first seven years of its development were summarized by JLL's current editors-in-chief in a 2019 Editors' Progress Report.