Author Guidelines for The Brief

The Brief is published quarterly by the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section (TIPS) of the American Bar Association. The magazine reaches more than 6,000 attorneys who represent civil plaintiffs, defendants, insurers, and insurance organizations.

Content

The Brief publishes articles of interest to plaintiffs and defense lawyers and in-house counsel who practice in the areas of personal injury, torts, and insurance law. Feature articles offer in-depth treatment of the many facets of tort and insurance law, including emerging issues and recent legal developments. “Practice TIPS,” “Trial TIPS,” and “Solo and Small Firm Practice TIPS” are short articles that give practical, how-to advice on practice and litigation matters.

Style

The Brief publishes articles that are lively, insightful, and pertinent to TIPS members’ practices. Authors should use a style that is readable, journalistic, and less formal than a law review article. Key style guidelines for authors include:

• Use gender-neutral language.
• Strive for an interesting opening and closing.
• Avoid long quotes, excess verbiage, and overworked figures of speech.
• Avoid the passive tense when the active tense can be used instead.
• Avoid using a long word when a short one will do.
• Never use a foreign phrase, scientific word, or jargon if a more common English equivalent exists.

The Brief article style allows for two levels of subheads: first-level subheads are flush left in boldface type; second-level subheads are in boldface type and run-in, preceding the first sentence of a paragraph. Citations should appear as endnotes and follow Bluebook style (e.g., case names are italic in textual sentences but roman in citations). Limit citations to complete, accurate source documentation and, occasionally, brief textual comments. The Brief prefers to minimize the number of citations in feature articles. “Id.” citations are particularly discouraged. Avoid string cites; if necessary, use no more than three in a single endnote.

Length

Feature article manuscripts typically are between 10 and 20 double-spaced pages in Microsoft Word (including quotations and endnotes), or a maximum of about 7,000 words, including endnotes. Preferred length for a feature is 4,500–5,500 words. “Practice TIPS,” “Trial TIPS,” and “Solo and Small Firm Practice TIPS” manuscripts are between 6 and 10 double-spaced pages, or about 2,000–3,500 words (including endnotes, which should be used in these short articles only when absolutely necessary). One double-spaced manuscript page contains about 350 words (depending on font and margins). (In Microsoft Office, use the Word Count feature to check length.)

Manuscript Preparation

Submit your original manuscript in Microsoft Word format electronically via email as an email attachment. Include a short sentence or two describing your professional affiliation and legal specialty area, which will appear with the article if it is accepted for publication. Also send a phone number and email address to which an ABA publication agreement form can be sent if your article is selected for publication. The Brief does not publish authors’ phone numbers or photos.

The Review Process

Forward your manuscript to the Editor in Chief, with a copy to the Staff Managing Editor (see below), for review by members of The Brief‘s editorial board. When a writer submits material to The Brief, there is no guarantee of publication. The editorial board reserves the right to reject and/or edit original material prior to publication.

Editing

If a manuscript is accepted for publication, ABA Publishing will copyedit it. The editorial staff reserves the right to make deletions to conform to space limitations. The edited manuscript will be sent in Word to the author for review, but because of production schedules, late changes are prohibited, and authors are not sent typeset proofs. After the edited Word manuscript is approved, every effort is made to clear any further substantive changes with the author.

Copyright

The ABA retains the copyright to all material published in The Brief. Authors are asked to sign a copyright agreement that grants to the ABA the exclusive right of first publication, the nonexclusive right to reprint, and the right to use the work in another ABA publication or medium.

SEND MANUSCRIPTS TO: Peter Biging, Editor in Chief ([email protected]); and Melissa Vasich, Managing Editor ([email protected]).