AUTHOR'S AGREEMENT. Every story submitted to the Brief should include a signed author's agreement. CLICK HERE for a copy.
TYPE OF PUBLICATION
The DCBA Brief is the journal of the DuPage County Bar Association (DCBA).The DCBA Brief is a three-column format magazine that publishes legal articles, news, announcements, advertisements and other information of interest to members of the DuPage County legal community.
REQUESTED MATERIALS
The focus of the DCBA Brief is substantive; however, special feature articles, op-ed articles and letters to the editor are encouraged.All submitted materials must state the author's full name and be signed by the author to be considered for publication.
FORMAT The font style for all articles will be Times New Roman, 11 point.Articles should be in either Microsoft Word or WordPerfect format and emailed to the editor or lead articles editor, as appropriate, or saved on a cd and mailed. Please retain a copy of the article; the Brief assumes no responsibility for the loss of an article.Authors must supply biographical information at the end of each article submitted.This information will include the following: Author's name.Current professional position.Name of University/College and year undergraduate degree earned.Name of University/College and the year law degree earned.
Authors should also provide or pose for a photograph to be used with their article.
LENGTH Lead articles should be no longer than 8-10 pages double-spaced, including endnotes**.This equates to approximately four pages, without ads, in a three-column magazine format.Special feature articles should be no longer than four pages double-spaced.If you anticipate your article will be longer, please contact the editor. WRITING STYLE
Articles should be written in a professional, interesting, and informative manner.They should have a clearly defined introduction, body, and conclusion.Headings should be inserted at appropriate places.Citations to cases and other materials must be placed as endnotes**.For Illinois cases, both state reporter and regional reporter (N.E.2d) citations should be used, such as Turnbull v. Porter, 55 Ill. App. 2d 374, 206 N.E.2d 97 (3rd Dist. 1964).For cases from other jurisdictions, only the regional reporter may be cited, with the name of the court inserted before the date, such as State v. Smith, 832 P.2d 435 (Ariz. 1989).Shepardizing and cite-checking are the responsibility of the author. Authors should submit a suggested title that succinctly summarizes their article.
**IMPORTANT FORMATTING NOTE:Due to a change in the desktop publishing program, endnotes MUST be formatted as endnotes (NOT footnotes as was required in the past).Please do not number pages. COPYRIGHT The DCBA Brief requests first publication rights from its authors; please do not submit articles that have previously been published in other publications.DCBA also requests that the author grant to DCBA any and all rights in the article under the copyright laws of the United States as well as under international copyright laws.Authors must sign an Author Agreement. EDITING All articles are subject to acceptance and editing by the Publication Board of the DCBA Brief to conform to editorial style, available space, or any other editorial standards or discretion.It is not the intent of the DCBA Brief editors to re-write an author's article.If an article requires extensive changes because of style or space constraints, the author will be asked to make the changes.If an article title needs to be changed, the author will be advised beforehand.The DCBA Brief may insert headings or captions where deemed appropriate.
PHOTO
Please include a head shot for publication with the article.If you do not have a current photo, one can be taken at the bar center office.Photos should be sent directly to the DCBA office or may be emailed to bar@dcba.org in a bmp, jpg or tif format.
SUBMISSION
All articles, editorial comments, and/or suggestions should be submitted in the stated format directly to the lead article editor, if known, or to the current editor: Eric R. Waltmire Erickson Law Group, P.C. 1749 S. Naperville Rd. Suite 202 Wheaton, IL 60189 Phone: 630.665-9404 Fax: 630.665-9414, eric@ericksonlawgroup.com
Following are general guidelines that authors should consider in preparing material for consideration in the BRIEF. These guidelines are not set in stone -- exceptions may be made -- but they provide a general overview of the kind of material we are looking for and should be reviewed by anyone considering the possibility of writing a story for the BRIEF:
(1) Authors should be involved in the DCBA bar, the DuPage County courthouse, or the legal profession generally, and our usual cadre of authors is therefore limited to lawyers, paralegals, law students, legal instructors (regardless of whether they work in the public or private sector) and DCBA or courthouse employees.
(2) Material submitted should be original to the Brief and not reprinted from websites, brochures or other sources. Exceptions we will consider include ADVANCE copies (or excerpts submitted by the author) from work to be published by national publishers; and transcripts or copies of material that we want to ensure the membership has for some other reason (i.e. the new President's installation speech).
(3) Authors should avoid writing in first-person when talking about case successes or expertise (we do not encourage blatant self-promotion).
(4) Articles about the law should actually cite to the law. If authorities are referenced in an article, they need to be cited.
(5) There should be a topical reason for any profile we run, aside from just how interesting the subject of the profile is. Everyone is interesting, inherently, and we therefore try to include something in our profile pieces, somewhere, which helps to explain why we chose to cover this person in this issue, as opposed to anyone else.