Peer Review

The American Indian Law Review is committed to advancing the quality of published scholarship relating to Native Americans and other indigenous peoples. Toward this goal, the Review considers article submissions through a peer-review process which was adopted in 2008.

Articles submitted to the American Indian Law Review are subject to an independent, double-blind peer-review process.  The identities of the reviewers and authors remain anonymous. Publication decisions are made based upon objective recommendations from reviewers (usually three to four) as well as the student board of editors. Editors ask that all reviewers base their recommendation on whether the article presents a clear thesis and whether it provides a meaningful contribution to the fields of American Indian or indigenous law.  Reviewers are requested to ignore their agreement with or objection to an article’s proposal. While the decisions of the peer reviewers are weighed heavily, all final decisions remain in the hands of the student board. In certain instances the student board might make publication decisions that are contrary to the recommendations of outside reviewers. 

The editors seek have all articles back from reviewers within six to eight weeks. Consequently, the Review asks that authors provide at least this much time for review. The editors understand that sometimes an author requires an expedited decision and have developed an expedited process for these circumstances. Under this process, the editors ask reviewers to provide a publish/no-publish decision within three weeks of receiving the article. The reviewers are then given an additional six to eight weeks to complete a more thorough review, should the article be accepted for publication. The Review will not make any publication decision sooner than three weeks after receiving a submission.

The American Indian Law Review is recruiting scholars and experts in the field of federal Indian law and indigenous peoples' issues to review articles submitted to the Review for publication. Anyone interested in joining the Review’s pool of reviewers should contact the current Editor-in-Chief or Articles Development Editor. 

All interested parties are added to a list of potential reviewers. Each individual on the list is contacted during the summer to determine availability as an active reviewer during the upcoming academic year.