By submitting a work for publication, all authors acknowledge they have reviewed the ABA Business Conduct Standards (BCS) and agree to comply with all applicable provisions. The Dispute Resolution Section requires that all conflicts of interest, such as those identified in the ABA Business Conduct Standards, be disclosed in any content or material submitted for publication. At a minimum, the Dispute Resolution Section requires that any content or material submitted for publication contain the identity of all authors and their professional affiliations, both to establish their qualifications and to reveal any potential conflicts of interest.
- Authors must agree not to submit any content that infringes upon or violates the copyrights, trademarks, or other intellectual property rights of any person or organization.
- Before publication, all prospective authors must sign an ABA publication agreement, and all publication agreements are required to be reviewed and approved by the Dispute Resolution Section and the ABA Office of the General Counsel (GCO).
The Dispute Resolution Section will not publish any content or material that is defamatory or violates the law. The Dispute Resolution Section supports the expression and publication of a variety of viewpoints, including those that are controversial or unpopular, but only when done in a civil manner. Decisions to publish articles that express unpopular opinions or encourage controversy are within the Dispute Resolution Section’s discretion.
- The Dispute Resolution Section reserves the right to reject any submission and to retract or reject any publication at any point in the publication process if there are any concerns with its content, including any content that is inconsistent with the ABA’s goals and policies. The Dispute Resolution Section does not guarantee publication of any submission.
- Authors have an obligation to correct mistakes if they discover a significant error or innacuracy in their publication. Upon discovering such an error, the author must contact the Dispute Resolution Section and identify the error. A decision on how to correct the publication will be made by the Section of Dispute Resolution depending on the nature of the error.
For any content submitted for potential publication, the Dispute Resolution Section will assume that the submitted content has not been submitted or already published elsewhere. The publication may not be submitted elsewhere while it is being evaluated by the Dispute Resolution Section for potential publication. If the submission has been previously published or is scheduled to be published elsewhere, the Author must communicate that fact to the Dispute Resolution Section.
The Dispute Resolution Section grants its authors a wide latitude of expression and encourages thoughtful presentation of a wide variety of viewpoints but reserves the right to edit and, if necessary, revise any submission before publication to conform to the ABA’s editorial requirements and procedures, including ABA standards of style, editing, and format, and the Dispute Resolution Section’s policies and procedures.