Editing a Law Journal

2. Desk screening. The editor asks four questions before anyone reads properly: is it within our subject and scope; does it meet the word limit and format; is it original and unpublished; is it simultaneously submitted elsewhere. A submission that fails any of these is returned now, not in four months.

3. Plagiarism check. Software, then a human. Below.

4. Peer review. Sent to two reviewers, usually blind (the reviewer does not know who wrote it) or double blind (neither knows the other). Reviewers report on originality, soundness of argument, adequacy of research, and whether the conclusions follow.

5. The decision. Four outcomes: accept, accept with minor revisions, revise and resubmit, reject. Communicate it with reasons. A rejection with no reasons teaches an author nothing and costs the journal its reputation among the people it needs.

6. Substantive editing. With the author. What can be cut, what needs support, what claim is stated more strongly than the sources allow.

7. Copy editing and citation check. Every footnote verified against the source. This is where a journal earns its name.

8. Proofs to the author. The author checks and returns. The author's approval is the last point at which a mistake is cheap.

9. Production and publication. Typesetting, ISSN, DOI where used, printing or hosting, indexing, dispatch.

Peer review: what it is for, and what it cannot do

Peer review tests whether an argument is sound, whether the research is adequate, and whether the piece adds anything. It is the reason a journal article is treated differently from a blog post.

What it cannot do:

• It cannot detect fabrication reliably. A reviewer reads the argument, not the archives.
• It cannot make a dull piece important.
• It cannot fix a piece the author will not revise.

Blind review exists to stop the wrong question being asked. The question is whether the argument is right, not whether the author is senior. In a student journal that receives submissions from professors and from second-year students, blinding is the only thing that keeps the standard honest.

House style and citation format

A journal prescribes one citation style and applies it to everything. In India the common choices are the Bluebook (widely used in the national law universities), OSCOLA, or a house style the journal publishes itself.

The rule is not which style. The rule is consistency, for a reason that is practical rather than aesthetic: a reader who finds two formats on one page cannot tell whether the third is a third format or an error, and so cannot rely on any of them.

A house style sheet should settle, at minimum:

• how statutes, cases, books, chapters, articles and online sources are cited;
• short forms for repeated citations;
• whether footnotes or endnotes, and whether a bibliography;
• spelling and capitalisation conventions;
• how block quotations are set, and the maximum length of a quotation;
• headings and their levels;
• the treatment of Indian statutory references, since section 34(2)(b)(ii) and Section 34 (2) (b) (ii) should not both appear in one volume.

Plagiarism

What it is. Presenting someone else's words, ideas, data or structure as your own. It includes the paraphrase that follows a source sentence by sentence with the words changed, and it includes self plagiarism, meaning republishing your own earlier work as new.

How a journal screens. Similarity-detection software first, which produces a percentage and a report of matched passages. Then a human, because the percentage alone decides nothing: a properly quoted and attributed passage, a statutory text, and a standard case citation all raise the number without being plagiarism, while three stolen sentences may barely move it.

The consequence. For a journal, a retraction, a notice, and damage that lasts longer than the issue. For a student, the institution's academic misconduct machinery. For an advocate, the professional consequences chapter 780 sets out, since misrepresentation is not a smaller matter because it happened in print.

The editorial rule to remember: the percentage is evidence, not a verdict. The editor reads the matched passages.

Where a law journal stands in 2026

Students are often told to publish in a "UGC-CARE listed" journal. Check the position before repeating it.

As at the date this chapter was written, the Consortium for Academic and Research Ethics states on its own site that the UGC-CARE List has not been updated since October 2024 and will not be updated further, as per the UGC Public Notice dated 11 February 2025, and that the website is available for information purposes only. The saved copy is in authorities/ugc-care-notice.txt.

So a reference to "the CARE list" now describes a frozen list, not a current one. What that means for an editor is simple and it is the point worth taking from this section: a journal's standing has to rest on what it actually does, which is real peer review, a real board, honest turnaround times, an ISSN, and archives that stay online, rather than on an entry in a list somebody else maintains.

This is exactly the kind of fact that goes stale. Check the source before repeating it in an answer, which is what chapter 750 is about.

Getting the issue out

The part nobody teaches, and the part that decides whether a journal exists after two years.

Work backwards from the publication date. Printing and dispatch, final proofs, author proofs, copy editing, revisions, decisions, review, screening, submission deadline, call for papers. Put dates on each and publish the ones that concern authors.

Publish the turnaround time and keep it. "Decision within eight weeks" is a promise. A journal that keeps it gets better submissions than one with a better masthead that does not.

Keep the correspondence. Every decision, every reviewer report, every author permission. When a dispute arises, and it will, the file is the answer.

Do not fill an issue to reach a page count. One weak article costs more than four pages saved.

A worked example: one submission, from arrival to decision

A college journal receives an article on section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act. The author is a professor at another university. Take it through the process.

It arrives by e-mail on 3 March. Log it, give it a number, and acknowledge receipt the same day with the date. That acknowledgement is also where the journal states its turnaround time, and having stated it, it is bound by it.

Desk screening. Four questions. Is it within scope: yes, the journal publishes on procedure and dispute resolution. Does it meet the word limit and format: it is 9,000 words against a stated limit of 8,000, so the author is asked to cut before review rather than after. Is it original and unpublished: the author confirms. Is it under consideration elsewhere: the author confirms it is not. Nothing has been read on the merits yet, and that is correct: screening is cheap and review is expensive.

Plagiarism check. The software returns 24 per cent similarity. The editor reads the matched passages and finds that almost all of it is the text of section 12A, quotations from Patil Automation, and standard case citations, each properly attributed. The percentage is evidence, not a verdict, and this one resolves to nothing. Had the report instead shown three unattributed sentences matching a blog, the percentage would have been lower and the finding far worse.

Anonymising. The author's name, institution and acknowledgements are removed before the piece goes out, because the reviewers must judge the argument and not the professorship. In a student journal this is the step that most needs enforcing, and it is enforced by the managing editor, not by the reviewer.

Peer review. Two reviewers. The first reports that the argument is sound but that the article does not deal with the prospective effect of the declaration from 20 August 2022, which is a real gap. The second reports "interesting, publish", which tells the editor nothing and is why two reviewers are asked rather than one.

The decision. Not accept, and not reject. Revise and resubmit, communicated with reasons: the word limit, and the missing treatment of prospectivity. The reasons matter, because the author is someone the journal wants to hear from again.

Substantive editing. The revised piece overstates one claim, saying the judgment "abolished" the exemption for urgent interim relief. It did not. The editor asks for the claim to be brought back to what the source supports, which is chapter 700's discipline applied by somebody other than the author.

Copy editing and citation check. Every footnote is checked against the source. Two citations give the SCC report only, where house style requires the neutral citation first; one refers to a paragraph number that does not exist in the judgment. That last one is why the check exists.

Proofs and publication. The proof goes to the author, who returns it with two corrections. Then typesetting, the ISSN, hosting, and dispatch. The whole sequence took eleven weeks against a published promise of twelve.

Now change one fact. Suppose the author, who is a practising advocate, asks that the article carry a footnote naming his chambers and inviting arbitration referrals. The journal declines. Rule 51 of the Bar Council of India Rules permits him to write; Rule 36 forbids soliciting work, and chapter 780 sets out what a violation exposes him to.

What beginners get wrong

Confusing copy editing with editing. Fixing commas is not deciding what to publish.

Treating peer review as a formality. Two reviewers who both say "good, publish" have told the editor nothing.

Treating the similarity percentage as the finding. It is a pointer to passages a human must read.

Rejecting without reasons. It costs the journal its next submission from that author.

Believing a masthead makes a journal. A board that has never met is a claim, not a fact.

Assuming an advocate may take any editorial job. Rule 51 permits editing and journalism, but Rule 49 still forbids full-time salaried employment while practising, and Rule 47 still forbids personally engaging in business.

Quick revision

• Roles: Patron, Editor in Chief, Editorial Board, Managing Editor, peer reviewers, copy editors, student editors.
• Process: submission and acknowledgement, desk screening, plagiarism check, peer review, decision, substantive editing, copy editing and citation check, author proofs, production.
• Four decisions: accept, accept with minor revisions, revise and resubmit, reject, each with reasons.
• Blind and double blind review keep the question on the argument rather than the author.
• House style: one style, applied consistently; consistency matters because it is what makes footnotes checkable.
• Plagiarism: software then a human; the percentage is evidence, not a verdict.
• UGC-CARE: the site itself says the List has not been updated since October 2024 and will not be updated further, per the UGC Public Notice of 11 February 2025.
• Rule 51, BCI Rules: an advocate may edit legal text books at a salary and engage in journalism, subject to the rules against advertising and full-time employment.

Test yourself

1. Set out the stages a submission passes through in a law journal. Submission and acknowledgement with a date; desk screening for scope, format, originality and simultaneous submission; a plagiarism check by software and then by a person; peer review, usually by two reviewers, blind or double blind; a decision of accept, accept with minor revisions, revise and resubmit, or reject, communicated with reasons; substantive editing with the author; copy editing and verification of every citation; proofs to the author; production and publication.

2. Why is peer review conducted blind? So that the submission is judged on the argument rather than on the author's seniority or institution. In a student-run journal that receives work from professors and from students in the same intake, blinding is what keeps the standard consistent.

3. What does a similarity-detection report actually establish? Very little on its own. Properly attributed quotations, statutory text and standard case citations raise the percentage without being plagiarism, while a few stolen sentences may barely register. The report tells the editor which passages to read; the editor decides.

4. May a practising advocate edit a law journal? Yes. Rule 51 of the Bar Council of India Rules expressly permits an advocate to edit legal text books at a salary and, subject to the rules against advertising and full-time employment, to engage in journalism, lecturing and teaching. It remains subject to Rule 47, which forbids personally engaging in business, and Rule 49, which forbids full-time salaried employment while continuing to practise.

5. What is the current position of the UGC-CARE list, and why does it matter to an editor? The Consortium's own site states that the List has not been updated since October 2024 and will not be updated further, per the UGC Public Notice dated 11 February 2025, and that the site is for information purposes only. It matters because a journal can no longer point at a current external list as its credential, so its standing rests on what it demonstrably does: genuine peer review, a working board, published and kept turnaround times, an ISSN, and archives that remain available.