Welcome to H-Law, an electronic list of
individuals interested
in constitutional and legal history. H-Law is an initiative of H-Net
and is sponsored by the
American
Society for Legal History. H-Law solicits discussion of scholarship
and of teaching legal and constitutional issues. The list is only as
good as its membership. Subscribers should contribute questions about
legal and constitutional history and respond to the questions of others.
All submissions must be approved by the editor, who will
reject personal attacks on other contributors, irrelevant material,
or items that do not further the scholarly dialogue. Complaints raised
by subscribers that rejected postings do "further the scholarly dialogue"
will be reviewed by the editorial board, who will advise the editor.
The decisions of the editor and editorial board will be final.
The senior editor
of H-Law is Chris Waldrep,
the Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Professor of History at San Francisco
State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132. He
can be e-mailed
at cwaldrep@sfsu.edu.
:: WHAT IS H-LAW'S POSTING POLICY?
::
H-Law posts material relevant to the intellectual, professional, and scholarly concerns of legal and constitutional historians. Postings should be civil and contribute to the scholarly discourse on legal and constitutional history. H-Law will not post material which is repetitiously polemical. Postings must ask or answer historical questions rather than press or pose purely legal and political questions. (We would, for example, entertain discussion on the framers' intentions on original intent, on its uses since the framing, and what the framers' original intent or understanding of some subject was. But we would not post an argument about whether current legal or constitutional controversies ought to be decided according to original intent.) The editor will exercise discretion on these matters in consultation with the editorial board as necessary.
H-Law, like the other H-Net list-servs, commissions and publishes reviews of recent books of interest to subscribers; H-Law also selectively cross-posts reviews of such books that have appeared on other H-Net list-servs and the Law and Politics Book Review list-serv. Editors will indicate in the subject line the original list that posted the review. H-Law welcomes comments on any published H-Law review and other cross-posted reviews, so long as these comments abide by the general policies governing postings to H-Law.
At their own discretion, editors may refer proposed postings to the editorial board for review. Once a post is sent to the editorial board for review, the board will have one week (seven days) to respond. The only exception will be time-sensitive conference or event announcements. Editors will mark those in the subject line. Postings that concern American Society of Legal History (ASLH) policy will always be referred to the H-Law board and can be referred to the relevant ASLH officer or committee chair for comment if the H-Law board elects to do so.
The editors reserve the right to reject or to request revisions of any submission for any reason. No post will be altered beyond simple copyediting and formatting for publication, without the author’s consent.
The editors reserve the right to adjust the timing and pace of publication for editorial or technical reasons.
Editors receiving a message where the author interweaves a reply among excerpts from previous messages will return the message to its author for revision. Quotations should be integrated into the text as in scholarly writing.
All postings to H-Law must include the author’s name and affiliation or an indication that the author is an independent scholar. The author’s email will be included unless the author asks that it not be published.
H-Law also publishes announcements of interest to historians. These include, but are not limited to:
1) ASLH announcements
2) other conference announcements and calls for papers
3) the H-Net job guide
4) the NCC Washington update
5) reviews posted to the H-Review website selected by the book review editors
6) bibliographic and website announcements
7) updates on archives, libraries and museums
8) other H-Announce postings of special interest to legal and constitutional historians
9) candidates' statements for ASLH elections.
10) Obituaries of legal historians and lawyers
H-Law will not publish commercial advertisements or political comment or endorsements. This does not preclude announcements of subscribers' forthcoming publications. The list will not post endorsements of candidates in the elections of professional associations, although it will inform subscribers when it is brought to the editors' attention that legal historians have been nominated, elected, or appointed to important positions in professional associations. H-Law will not publicize or run threads on direct action such as strikes.
In all cases, the decision of the editors and the editorial board will be final.
