The American Bar Foundation and Law & Social Inquiry (LSI) are thrilled to begin our new partnership with Cambridge University Press and encourage you to read our first issue published together here.

LSI will continue to publish high-quality, innovative law-and-society research articles and review essays, now with a more dynamic digital platform and a quicker time-to-publication. With the help of Cambridge’s world-class editing, production, and marketing operation, we look forward to further securing LSI’s reputation as one of the world’s leading journals for sociolegal scholarship.

What is Law & Social Inquiry?
LSI is a multidisciplinary quarterly publication of original research articles and review essays that analyze law, legal institutions, and the legal profession from a sociolegal perspective. First published in 1976 as the American Bar Foundation Research Journal and retitled Law & Social Inquiry in 1988, the journal’s distinctive mix of innovative empirical and theoretical articles and field-charting review essays assessing the latest developments in sociolegal scholarship have made it an indispensable source for legal scholars and practitioners.

What Makes Law & Social Inquiry Different?
LSI stands apart due to its global reputation for publishing high-quality scholarship. Whether measured by impact factor, acceptance rate, or reputation among scholars, LSI is among the top peer-reviewed journals in the field of sociolegal scholarship. LSI fully encompasses the diversity and creativity of modern law-and-society scholarship. We publish scholars from around the world writing on topics that examine legal issues in all areas of the globe.

LSI is a truly interdisciplinary journal. We publish works grounded in a variety of disciplines—anthropology, criminology, economics, history, philosophy, political science, social psychology, and sociology, among others. Many individual LSI articles draw on more than one disciplinary tradition.

LSI works with authors to expand their readership. Our editorial team works with accepted authors to make their work more accessible to a broader audience—without sacrificing methodological sophistication and analytical nuance. For scholars who typically publish in law reviews or disciplinary journals, LSI offers an invaluable opportunity to reach a broader audience.

LSI is also recognized as the world’s leading journal for scholarship on the legal profession. We actively seek out and regularly publish articles that speak to the needs and interests of legal practitioners.

LSI supports junior scholars. Every year, LSI holds a graduate student paper prize competition. In addition to a cash prize, the winner gets the prize-winning paper published in LSI. Beyond the graduate student prize competition, LSI’s Editorial Committee seeks to identify the work of promising junior scholars and help them through the peer review process. Even when this does not result in an offer of publication, we strive to use the peer review process to guide and encourage junior scholars.

Find out more about submitting your paper to Law & Social Inquiry here.

Christopher W. Schmidt is the Editor of Law & Social Inquiry. Free access to the new issue is available until April 15th, 2019.