To disseminate your scholarship to the widest possible audience, make sure you retain the right to post your work to repositories including BePress' Digital Commons and the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Most law school affiliated journals will not have a problem with this as long as you also post the journal citation.
When you publish with a commercially produced journal rather than a law school journal, the rights you retain as the author will vary depending upon the publisher. SPARC has produced a brochure identifying the rights faculty have as copyright holders and provides advice on how to retain rights to ensure the broadest practical access to your articles. They also provide an Author Addendum to help you retain rights and offer tips on what to do if a publisher rejects the addendum. The SPARC resources and other information on author rights and publications agreements follow.
Use this downloadable addendum to retain your copyright.
Collective licensing agencies are often the fastest way to obtain reprint permission. For more information on these agencies, see the links in the Web Resources box above. Most publishers post guidelines on how to seek reprints or permissions on their website, and may even provide a form for submitting such requests. The following are some publisher specific pages for seeking permission:
The following resources provide guidance for determining when you need to request permission to reprint copyrighted material.
University of Miami has a detailed wiki about law journal copyright experiences, including a detailed list of journal copyright permissions. Please share your copyright experiences with the Wiki to keep the legal academic community up to date.