During the 2021 year, we continued to make progress on improving the review process at Legal Theory. Many thanks are due to our managing editor, Mariam Kazanjian, for keeping the process running smoothly. We do, however, continue to experience difficulty in finding reviewers for submissions and in receiving timely reviews from reviewers. In some cases, Ms. Kazanjian has had to contact over 20 prospective reviewers before finding two people who would agree to review a manuscript. In just a few cases, an editor has finally had to step in to complete a second review. Although all peer-review academic journals have been experiencing increasing difficulty in finding reviewers over the years, we suspect that part of the problem is that the ongoing pandemic has left people overwhelmed with juggling work and family demands, and so less able to take on additional responsibilities. We remain hopeful that this part of the review process will improve as the pandemic subsides and as we are able to identify new reviewers.
Although these difficulties, along with an increase in the number of submissions, resulted in an increase in time from submission to desk rejection or decision to review, the number of days remains comparable to the last couple of years. The average time from submission to screening decision was 37 days, and the average time from submission to first set of reviewer reports was five to six months. So authors contemplating submission to Legal Theory can ordinarily expect to hear back on their submissions in about one to six months. Time to final decision depends on the time until resubmission, as well as on whether the submission undergoes one or more rounds of revision. With a 2021 acceptance rate of 7%, Legal Theory remains a highly selective peer-reviewed journal for work in analytic legal philosophy and related areas.
As regular readers of our journal may be aware, Cambridge University Press provides awards annually to our top reviewers as a token of thanks for their efforts to support high quality research in legal theory. The 2021 Reviewer Award recipients are:
Peter Benson, University of Toronto
Samuele Chilovi, University of California, Los Angeles
Frederick Schauer, University of Virginia
Victor Tadros, University of Warwick
Many thanks to the recipients—and to all of our reviewers—for their fine work and dedication to Legal Theory, as well as to our authors, who trust us with their high-quality submissions.
We hope all of our readers, authors, and reviewers have been managing the pandemic as well as possible, and we very much hope for improved conditions for everyone in the year ahead.
