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 Georgia, 11 point, but text may be submitted in Times New Roman, if preferred.Articles should be in Microsoft Word 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 and a photograph of the author (preferably a head shot) suitable for printing in an area of approximately 1” x 1.5”.Author’s biographical information should 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; publications and honors of note.
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 also submit a suggested title that succinctly summarizes their article. IMPORTANT FORMATTING NOTE:Due to formatting issues in the desktop publishing program, all endnotes must be formatted as footnotes in Word or WordPerfect (not endnotes) to properly transfer to that program. 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 in the form attached herewith. EDITING.All articles are subject to acceptance and editing by the Publications 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.The editors reserve the right to change article titles as needed.The DCBA Brief may also insert headings or captions where deemed appropriate.
PHOTO.Please include a head shot of yourself 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: Ted Donner Donner & Company Law Offices, LLC 1125 Wheaton Oaks Ct. Wheaton, IL60187 Phone:630.588.1131Fax:630.682.1131 tdonner@donnerco.com Articles may also be sent to the lead articles editor for the issue in which the article will be published.Lead articles editors for 2007-08 are as follows:
Issues/Deadline
Issue Editor
October/Copy due Aug 1, 2007
Ted Donner
November/Copy due Sept. 1, 2007
Eric Waltmire
December/Copy due Oct. 1, 2007
Sean McCumber
January/Copy due Nov. 1, 2007
Dave McCarthy
February/Copy due Dec. 1, 2007
Jim McCluskey
March/Copy due Jan. 2, 2008
Jim Ryan
April/Copy due Feb. 1, 2008
Melissa Piwowar
May/Copy due Mar. 1, 2008
Markus May
June/Copy due Apr. 1, 2008
John Pcolinski
July/Copy due May 1, 2008
Christa Schneider
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.