Author Guidelines – Write for the Law Letter

Article Submissions
The Law Letter Journal is a Tasmanian publication providing content for the legal community and legal consumers nationwide. Lawyers, judges, law school professors, expert witnesses, associated professions, and other appropriate parties are invited to submit thought-provoking content for publication. Please review our Editorial Guidelines below before submitting your content.

To submit your article for consideration, please complete this form or email shelley.harwood@lst.org.au.

Submission Types
Submissions should provide fresh insights or actionable tips, avoiding vague, overly general, or promotional content. Articles must offer unique perspectives or implementable steps that add value to legal practices, leaving readers with tangible takeaways. Authors are encouraged to imbue articles with their voice, experiences, and tangible examples to engage and inform readers. The Society welcomes the following submission types.

Opinion pieces offering perspectives on recent or evolving cases, laws, or trends, analysing their industry impact and potential future implications.
Educational articles with practical advice, legal practice management, career growth, wellbeing, finance, marketing, or legal technology.
Book or legal-tech / AI product reviews.

Publication Format and Accessibility
The Law Society of Tasmania’s Law Letter Journal has recently converted to a monthly publication which comprises:

Circulation of over 1200 copies to all legal practitioners, associate members, courts, and government departments within Tasmania.
Public as well as member access to articles, op-eds and reviews via the Society website’s Law Letter Hub. This Hub is the Society’s growing article repository of current and historical articles that have been written for the Law Letter Journal over time, and that is being added to daily.

Deadlines (Enquiries to shelley.harwood@lst.org.au)

Last Wednesday of every month – Law Letter editions are published
Any time of the year – Submissions are welcome anytime
By second week of the month for time-critical content – If your content is time-critical and you would like it considered for the immediate next publication, your submission, together with an accompanying note, is to be received by the second week of the month.

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Editorial Guidelines – Law Letter Submission Requirements

Abstract – For use at the start of the article, authors are asked to provide a 50 word abstract.

Key Takeaways – Authors are asked to provide three short key takeaways to be included on the article’s webpage. If these are not provided by the author, they will be prepared at the Society’s discretion.

Biographical Information – To ensure that you are fully and appropriately acknowledged as the author of your article, please provide your full name; firm or organisation; position / title; email address; LinkedIn URL (optional); and website address (optional). If your bio is not supplied, the Society will use the one it already has for you (where applicable) or source a bio from your website (where applicable).

Author Photographs – A professional quality head and shoulders photograph of the author(s) must be supplied with a clear background. Images are to be 400px x 400px and provided as a *.png or *.jpeg.

Formats and Style
Format – Articles / blog posts are to be provided in Microsoft Word ready for website upload.

Length – Articles are to be a minimum of 300 words and a maximum 2500 words; book reviews are to be between 350-400 words.

Style – Aim to be clear and concise. Use short sentences and paragraphs and text should be interspersed with appropriate and concise (ideally up to three word) sub-headings.

Footnotes, Endnotes and In-text Citations – The Law Letter does not publish footnotes, but authors are encouraged to cite cases, laws and other cited articles or reports with a link out to the original content. For shorter articles, minimal endnotes may be considered.

Hyperlinks – Rather than using text citations, authors are encouraged to provide direct links to original content such as cases, laws, and cited articles to ensure proper attribution and accessibility for readers.

References – Article submissions must be your own original work – any direct quotations or material based on other works must be fully credited.

When Citing Legislation – Italicise the title, but not the year, for example, Legal Profession Act 2007 (Tas); and abbreviate the jurisdiction in brackets to distinguish. When the same Act or Bill is referred to frequently throughout an article, quote the first reference in full and abbreviate subsequent references; and rather than using endnotes, incorporate references to specific section/clauses in the text.

Endnotes – Short in-text citations and/or hyperlinks in brackets are encouraged instead of endnotes in an online format. Footnotes are not accepted. Where endnotes are used, they should be kept to a minimum consistent with adequate acknowledgement of sources etc.; checked to ensure reference numbers within the text correspond with reference in the endnotes.