Wills, Trusts, and Estates Comes to SSRN
Background: The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is an electronic archive of abstracts to, and full text reproductions of, scholarly papers in the social sciences, including the study of law. Legal scholarship fits within the Legal Scholarship Network (LSN), a subdivision of the SSRN. The SSRN’s archived materials are available for public downloading from the SSRN web page at www.ssrn.com. The web interface also allows for searches of the database, which provides a simple but powerful means for assaying cutting-edge research on any topic within the SSRN inventory. The LSN has become a central clearinghouse for legal scholarship.
In addition to providing a web-based archive of papers and abstracts, SSRN provides a distribution function. Listings of newly posted materials are emailed regularly to subscribers. These emails, called journals, are organized by subject. Thus there are contract law, constitutional law, corporation law, tort law, and numerous other subject matter journals within the LSN.
The Problem: Notably absent from the current inventory of journals is one for papers or abstracts concerning wills, trusts, and estates. Accordingly, those of us who write in the field must announce our papers in other, less suitable journals-or not at all. Not only does this stymie the circulation of interesting ideas in trusts and estates, but it also lowers the profile of trusts and estates in the legal academy.
The Solution: Thanks to a grant from the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel Foundation, SSRN has created a new LSN abstracting journal, Wills, Trusts, and Estates Law Abstracts, which will be edited by Robert H. Sitkoff of Northwestern University School of Law.
Action Plan: In order for this to be successful, it is important that you do two things: First, you should subscribe to this journal through SSRN, and second, please submit your articles before and/or after they’ve been accepted for publication. Here is how to subscribe and to submit:
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How to subscribe: Subscriptions to this journal are free. You can subscribe to the journal at http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=wills-trusts-estates You will need to enable session cookies on your browser to use this link or to access our user headquarters at: If you have any questions please call 877-SSRNHelp (877.777.6435).http://www.ssrn.com/, and click on the link for submissions.
- How to submit: Go to the main SSRN web page,
- How to browse: To browse all abstracts and papers in this journal, go to http://www.ssrn.com/link/wills-trusts-estates.html
- What if you have recently posted to SSRN, before the WTE journal was active? If you posted an abstract in the last sixth months but before this journal was active and you would like your abstract announced in the Wills, Trusts, and Estates Law journal, please email the link to your abstract (including the abstract number) to Rob Sitkoff at r-sitkoff@law.northwestern.edu
Special thanks to Prof. Robert H. Sitkoff, Associate Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law for supplying the text of the blog entry.