The award-winning ACC Docket is the journal of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and the premier publication for in-house counsel. Each issue delivers timely news and practical advice you can apply to your daily practice. The ACC Docket has a circulation of more than 35,000 readers worldwide, including ACC members, corporate counsel who practice in law firms and law students.

Read our general editorial guidelines below or get answers to frequently asked questions on the Article Submission Process or our Manuscript Specifications.

Author Requirements

In-house attorneys or author teams that consist of at least one in-house attorney can write for the magazine. Membership in ACC is not required. Manuscripts must be the original work of the authors(s) and not previously published or simultaneously submitted to another publication. Self-promotional articles are not accepted.

Article Topics

Successful ACC Docket articles are sophisticated how-to articles. They provide practical, nuts-and-bolts information that's directly relevant to the day-to-day practice of in-house counsel. For example, an article addressing how in-house counsel could respond to a recent important court decision probably would be published; an article covering only the court's reasoning probably would not be. Each issue of the ACC Docket covers a specific topic, in depth. See the editorial calendar for a list of upcoming topics.

Target Audience

The majority of ACC's members and therefore ACC Docket readers are attorneys in law departments of 20 or fewer attorneys. Many within this group are the only attorneys employed by their companies. Write your article with these small or single-person law departments in mind.

Non-members can view sample feature articles here:

• All the King's Horses … Putting the Value Back Into Legal (Jan. 2012)
• I Just Became a General Counsel: What Do I Do Next? (March 2012)

Tips on Writing Successful Articles

• The overall tone of an ACC Docket article should be that of an experienced colleague giving advice to another colleague. Use the second person (you), which engages readers and establishes a rapport with them.
  

• Make your opening paragraph compelling. The lead paragraph should grab the reader's attention and say, "This is an issue you could soon face and here's how you can deal with it." Use an example or describe an experience to emphasize the importance of the issue companies face.
  

• Browse back issues to review appropriate article topics, as well as tone, style and length.
  

Contact the ACC Docket

Kim Howard, Publisher & Director of Surveys
Association of Corporate Counsel
1025 Connecticut Ave., NW
Suite 200
Washington, DC 20036-5425
Phone: 202.293.4103, x320
Fax: 202.293.4701
Email: howard@acc.com

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FAQs on Article Submission Process

What should a proposal for an article contain?

A proposal should summarize the central idea behind the article, why this issue is important to in-house counsel and briefly describe solutions or advice regarding the issue.

How do I submit a proposal?

Please email your proposal to Kim Howard, editor in chief of the ACC Docket, at howard@acc.com. In certain situations, we will consider phone submissions but email is preferred.

Once I've submitted a proposal for an article, when will I find out if it's been accepted?

We will respond to your proposal within one to four weeks. Once you've received approval from the editor in chief, you can begin working on your article. Note that we will not schedule publication until your first draft has been approved.

Do you provide any feedback on proposals?

Yes. Our editor in chief will provide feedback via email or by phone.

Can I rewrite and resubmit my proposal if it is rejected?

Yes. After you receive feedback on your proposal by the editor in chief, you can resubmit your proposal. However, if your proposal is rejected twice, please do not submit it again.

What happens after my proposal has been accepted?

You can start writing your article. Unless the editor in chief specifies a deadline, we will work with your schedule. Note that we will not schedule a publication date until we have approved your first draft.

How does the article development process work?

There are three major steps involved in developing an ACC Docket article.

1. Submit a proposal.

   Email an outline, executive summary or other brief description of your proposed topic to ACC Docket editor in chief Kim Howard at howard@acc.com. The editor reserves the right to refuse any submission for any reason.

   The most common reasons for rejecting an article are because it was not written or co-written by in-house counsel, it does not deal with topics relevant to in-house practitioners, it lacks sufficient hands-on information, it is self-promotional or it projects an inappropriate style or tone.

2. Write a first draft.

   Once the editor gives your outline or executive summary preliminary approval, you can begin drafting your article. Depending on your topic and the publication date, you will have three weeks to three months to submit a draft.

   Articles usually run 3,000 to 4,000 words, including sidebar material. Two or three sidebars, of 250 to 300 words are recommended for each article.

   Sidebars should not be an afterthought they make your article visually interesting and draw readers into your work. Useful sidebars include checklists, sample forms and policies, case studies and real-life examples. Sidebars that are too long to include in print will be incorporated into the online version of the article.

   Include in your article a list of resources (useful and relevant books, periodicals and Web sites) for readers who want to delve deeper into your topic. Provide a brief, one-line description for each resource. These can be non-ACC resources because we will include our own sidebar material from ACC's Virtual Library.
   

3. Revise and finalize your article.

   After you submit a draft article, the ACC Docket editorial team will review it. Depending upon when the article is scheduled for publication, you will receive an edited version of your article and possibly an overall critique containing suggestions for further development.

   The edits will include revisions for house style, grammar, accuracy and flow. When necessary, the editorial staff may do substantial rewriting and editing. Also, we may now ask you to write additional material (e.g., a sidebar) to accompany the main article.

   You'll have approximately two to four weeks to revise your article based on our feedback and send us your final draft. Once you sign off on your final draft, our production schedule does not allow further review. At this point, our editors may do some minor copyediting but there will be no substantive edits. Finally, we will publish your article.

Can I get author reprints?

Yes. Different options for reprints are available depending on how you intend to use the article. All authors receive low-resolution PDF files of their articles, which can be posted on Web sites and shared with colleagues via email. Authors also receive five copies of the print magazine in which the article appears. If you want more copies of the magazine, they are available while supplies last; we do not print additional copies of a particular issue outside the normal print run.

ACC does not offer reprints of individual articles, but bulk reprints and high-resolution PDFs suitable for four-color printing are available through Bussolati.

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Manuscript Specifications

Author Biographies

Authors must submit a 40-word bio that includes your current title and relevant experience. You will receive a byline credit and a brief bio accompanying the published article. Further biographical information may be included at the discretion of the editorial staff.

Author Photos

Photos of authors accompany all ACC Docket articles. Send a head-and-shoulder color photo to the ACC Docket staff by the time your final draft is submitted. We prefer digital images, but we will accept hard copy photos if necessary. If you do submit a hard copy photo, please be sure to include a return mailing address so we can return the photo to you.

Digital photos must be high-resolution, at least 300 dpi. Acceptable formats include: .tiff, .eps and .jpg.

Copyright Assignment

Every author published in the ACC Docket must fill out a copyright assignment form. After your draft has been accepted for publication and you have been informed of a specific publication issue, the Docket editorial staff will ask you to print, fill out and sign the form. Fax it to the attention of Laurie Adamson, editorial assistant at 202.293.4701 or email adamson@acc.com.

Graphics

Email graphics, such as charts and other visual materials, in .tiff, .eps or .jpg format with your rough or final draft. If your graphics are too large to be emailed, please send them to us on a CD-ROM. Unfortunately, we cannot use graphics embedded in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint files.

Endnotes

The ACC Docket does not follow a law journal format. Therefore, we do not encourage excessive footnoting. Avoid using more than 10 footnotes and avoid lengthy, law review-style explanations of case holdings in footnotes.

You must support your statements with sources for figures, quotations, paraphrases and other material drawn from outside resources, as well as for the spellings and definitions of terms of art. Include these sources as endnotes, following The Blue Book citation style.

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