Message from the 2013-2014 Executive Board

This past year has been an exciting one for the newly revamped Criminal Law Practitioner, formerly known as the Criminal Law Brief.  We are proud to begin fostering our new mission of providing practitioners with timely and practical articles.  Our Spring 2014 Issue will be published, both online and in hard copy, at the beginning of June.  Thank you to those who have supported us throughout the year, to the authors who took a chance on us, and to the members of this publication who essentially doubled their responsibilities this year to ensure a successful transition.

We are honored to pass along the torch to the incoming 2014-2015 Executive Board, all of whom, without hesitation, will take this publication to the next level.

Raleigh Mark, 3L, Editor-in-Chief

Robert Nothdurft, Jr., 3L, Executive Editor

Annie Berry, 3L, Managing Editor

Janissia Orgill, 2L, Publications Editor

Jonathan Yunes, 2L, Associate Publications Editor

Omeed Assefi, 2L, Articles Editor

Trevor Addie, 2L, Blog Editor

We are also pleased to announce the incoming 2014-2015 Senior Editors:

Ife Afolayan, 3L

Michael Bayern, 3L

Cassandre Plantin, 3L

Stephane Plantin, 3L

Next week will begin publishing blog posts on our summer blog schedule, new posts will be published every Tuesday.  You can follow the blog by email and receive new posts as they are published.  

Thank you to everyone who helped make the Criminal Law Practitioner’s first year so successful.

- 2013-2014 Executive Board

HOLIDAY MESSAGE TO OUR READERS!

Thank you for your support as we transitioned from the Criminal Law Brief to the Criminal Law Practitioner.  This semester students and guest practitioners have put out a series of great posts that we hope you enjoyed.  Thanks to all who contributed to make it a great first season with the CLP Blog!  Student posts will be temporarily suspended until January 2014.

IMPORTANT NOTICE:  Please note we will be changing the blog address from wclcriminallawbrief.blogspot.com to crimlawpractitionerblog.blogspot.com. You can also access the blog through the CLP website: crimlawpractitioner.com, or by googling us or following the blog via email and Twitter.

When we resume again in January 2014 we will be launching a new section -- The Supreme Court Watch -- where upcoming and recent Supreme Court cases and opinions relating to criminal law will be discussed and analyzed.  We will break down the cases with specific analysis for the affect on practitioners.

We are also excited to announce that the first CLP publication will be published and ready for distribution in January 2014!  This publication will consist of four student articles, four practitioner articles, and two editorial pieces. If you are interested in receiving a free copy of the CLP publication, please email us at crimlawpractitioner@gmail.com with your contact information and we will add you to our mailing list.   

If you are interested in submitting an article to the publication, please visit our website for submission details and you may contact us at crimlawpractitioner@gmail.com; or for a blog post, please email us at crimlawpractitionerblog@gmail.com.

Thank you again for reading the CLP Blog and sharing your comments with us.

Happy Holidays!

Sincerely, 

The Criminal Law Practitioner

The Evolution of WCL’s Only Criminal Law Publication: Introducing the Criminal Law Practitioner

On behalf of the 2013-2014 Executive Board, we are pleased to formally announce our publication’s transition from the Criminal Law Brief to the Criminal Law Practitioner.  Building on the strong foundation from our many publications as the Criminal Law Brief, which identified key issues and recent developments in the criminal law field, our journal now seeks to take our articles one step further by discussing the practical application of prevalent and controversial issues in criminal law.  This is something many other criminal law journals and publications have yet to delve into and we are very excited to initiate what we hope will be an enduring trend.  To reflect the new mission of our publication, we implemented the name change from the Criminal Law Brief to the Criminal Law Practitioner.

We are currently accepting article submissions from practitioners all over the country.  For specific requirements, please visit our website where you will find the Style Guide and Topic Proposal form.  This new format caters to the life of a busy criminal law practitioner: the articles will be shorter, timely, and practical.   Furthermore, to ensure a comprehensive publication that identifies a variety of facets in the criminal law field, the Criminal Law Practitioner, published biannually, will promote the scholarship of not only practitioners, but also current American University, Washington College of Law students.  For more information on our new publication, please visit our website. 

Former Editor-in-Chief, Monica Trigoso, kicked off our blog in 2011; since her creation of the blog, we have had an outlet for providing quick and detailed analyses of current contested issues in criminal law.  Such issues range anywhere from discussing a recent court decision, providing a review of a new book in the field of criminal law, or analyzing the effect of newly implemented legislation or policies.  We welcome guest blog submissions throughout the year, which can be sent to crimlawpractitionerblog@gmail.com.  To eliminate any confusion, our web address will soon be changed from the Criminal Law Brief Blog to the Criminal Law Practitioner Blog.

In an effort to promote our newly transformed publication so it finds its way to the best readers and writers, we can now be found on a variety of social media, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  Please “like” us, “connect” with us, or “follow” us, to stay up-to-date! 

Thank you for bearing with us as we make this exciting transition.  With this new direction, it is our hope that judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and other practicing criminal lawyers can use both our publication and our blog as an insightful reference.  We look forward to publishing a great issue this Fall and encourage our readers to consider submitting either an article or guest blog post for publication.

Megan Petry

Editor-in-Chief, Criminal Law Practitioner