During 2019, the ISTJ will launch a peer-reviewed Occasional Papers Series for original pieces of 1,000-5,000 words. This publication format will help us to bridge the gap between shorter writings such as blog posts and opinion pieces and longer writings such as journal articles and book chapters. This will be an interdisciplinary series that publishes the work of scholars and practitioners in all fields related to TJ.
As some of you know, for several years the Arizona Summit Law School published the International Journal of Therapeutic Jurisprudence in partnership with the school’s law review. This was due to the stalwart efforts of the late Michael Jones, a professor there and retired judge. Unfortunately, Michael, a beloved member of the TJ community, lost his battle with cancer in December 2017. In addition, Arizona Summit has announced that it is closing its doors — another sign of the challenges facing legal education in the U.S.
In light of these developments, the ISTJ board of trustees spent several months assessing potential options, including the possibility of hosting the journal through another school or securing a commercial publisher. Ultimately we decided not to pursue the publication of an ISTJ-sponsored journal, in part because there are so many law journals already in existence.
However, for some time we have planned to launch an Occasional Papers Series that publishes commentaries and essays, reports and research summaries, reviews, annotated bibliographies, and creative works. We are going forward with this initiative during 2019. Any ISTJ member in good standing will be eligible to submit work for consideration. Later this year, we will post guidelines for submissions to the ISTJ website.
In the meantime, we are seeking ISTJ members who wish to serve on the inaugural editorial board. The primary responsibility of editorial board members will be to review submitted manuscripts. If you would like to explore this possibility, please contact David Yamada at dyamada@suffolk.edu for a copy of the initial proposal for the Occasional Papers Series and include a bit about your interests and background related to TJ. (a C.V. is fine, too.)