ylj-placement-strategy

Placement Strategy (ylj-placement-strategy)

Law-review placement is a multi-submission market: authors submit one near-final piece to many reviews at once and use an offer from a lower-ranked journal to expedite review at higher-ranked ones. This skill plans the campaign and the expedite — with the YLJ-specific rules, which diverge from the generic model. It does not run the upload checklist (ylj-submission).

When to trigger

• Deciding the submission slate and what tier to target alongside YLJ
• Timing the submission to a season (Feb–Mar main, Aug smaller)
• Holding an offer from another review and considering an expedite to YLJ
• Weighing whether the piece is YLJ-ready or belongs at a specialty/secondary review

YLJ-specific facts (these differ from the generic law-review playbook)

• YLJ uses its own online submission system — NOT Scholastica or ExpressO. You still multi-submit across the market via Scholastica/ExpressO, but YLJ must be submitted (and expedited) through its own author portal (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准).
• Expedite gives NO competitive advantage at YLJ. YLJ states it will not depart from its rigorous review process for expedited pieces; an offer elsewhere does not move you to the front. Request an expedite via your YLJ author account; if facing an imminent deadline you may also email the submissions office (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准).
• Anonymized review. The Articles & Essays Committee reviews pieces without the author's name, affiliation, or prior-publication record — so prestige signaling in the manuscript does nothing.
• Length weighs. Over-length pieces weigh against acceptance (Article < 25k / Essay < 15k / Forum < 10k words incl. footnotes, encouraged).

Season timing

Window	Character	Strategy
Spring (Feb–Mar)	The main cycle; front-loaded into early-mid February	Submit when the piece is genuinely near-final; the slate is busiest
Fall (Aug)	Smaller cycle	Viable if the piece misses spring or is timely; fewer slots

Submitting a not-yet-finished draft early to "be first" backfires: student editors evaluate a finished manuscript, and a rough draft draws a fast pass.

Running an expedite (generic market + YLJ caveat)

1. Hold a written offer with a decision deadline from another review.
2. Expedite up the tiers across the market (via Scholastica/ExpressO where those journals live).
3. For YLJ specifically, file the expedite through the YLJ author portal — but do not expect it to create priority; it only ensures your deadline is on record.
4. Never bluff an offer you don't hold; the legal-academy market is small and reputational.

Checklist

• Slate chosen across tiers; YLJ targeted via its own portal, not Scholastica
• Submitted to YLJ only when near-final (not a placeholder draft)
• Season chosen deliberately (Feb–Mar main / Aug smaller)
• Expedite, if any, backed by a real written offer + deadline
• Understood that a YLJ expedite confers no queue priority
• Manuscript anonymized of prestige cues (review is name-blind)

Anti-patterns

• Submitting YLJ through Scholastica/ExpressO (it isn't accepted there) and assuming it arrived
• Treating an expedite as a YLJ fast-pass — it explicitly is not
• Rushing an unfinished draft into the early-February crush to "beat the rush"
• Bluffing an offer to manufacture an expedite deadline
• Sending an over-length piece and hoping quality overrides the length penalty

Output format

【Slate】journals + tiers; YLJ via its own portal? Y/N
【Season】Feb–Mar / Aug; piece near-final? Y/N
【Expedite】real offer held? filed in YLJ portal? (no priority expected)
【Anonymized】prestige cues removed? Y/N
【Next】ylj-submission for the upload preflight

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — YLJ portal, expedite, and season facts with sources
• ../../resources/external_tools.md — Scholastica/ExpressO and the YLJ author portal