What to Expect: Drafting a Book Chapter

A book chapter is an authoritative and continually updated legal analysis of a particular area of law or legal topic.

• Join a group of esteemed experts contributing to a well-established book
• Boost your credentials and be recognized as an expert
• Hone your writing skills
• Share your unique perspective
• Receive complimentary access to the online book
• See also Getting the Most out of Contributing for ICLE

• An ICLE staff lawyer will
  • explain the process to you in detail,
  • send you a publishing agreement to review and sign,
  • provide you with drafting guidelines,
  • work with you to edit and finalize your outline and chapter and provide you a typeset proof of the final chapter to review, and
  • send you a link to the chapter once it is posted on the ICLE website.
• An ICLE staff member will request your biography and high-resolution photo for the ICLE website.
• Feel free to contact the ICLE staff lawyer working with you at any point during the process if you have questions.

Depending on the complexity and breadth of the subject, the time frame for developing an outline and creating an initial draft ranges from several weeks to several months. The ICLE lawyer and contributing editors (practitioners working as content editors on the book) will ask questions and offer suggestions throughout the drafting process.

Our online books are continually updated. That means that if there are changes to the law over the course of the year that affect the content of the chapter, an ICLE staff lawyer will contact you with questions or suggestions, and you will draft and approve edits. Outside of the continual updating process, we will send the chapter for your review whenever the print book is scheduled for a supplement or revision. Some of our books are printed yearly or every two years, and others are not on a set printing schedule. (Even if the book is not going to print, you may be asked to review between print supplements.) The ICLE lawyer working with you will give you ample notice when a review is needed. During the review process, the ICLE lawyer will send you a redline of your chapter showing all of the changes made since the last printing, as well as a Microsoft Word document for you to use to make any desired changes.