Whether manuscripts are submitted directly by authors or by the editors on behalf of authors, all submissions appear in the Not Yet Published list on the Manage Submissions page until they are accepted, withdrawn, or rejected. This section discusses the process of moving a manuscript from the initial submission through to an editorial decision.
Viewing Submissions
To access current pending submissions:
- Go to http://law.bepress.com/expresso
- Click on Login in the top navigation bar to login
- Click on Manage Submissions in the Editor Tools section
- By default, the resulting screen (as seen below) shows a list of manuscripts assigned to you as an editor. You may view all submissions, or specifically those assigned to other editors by utilizing the search filters in the upper portion of the page.

The Manage Submissions page serves as the central hub of all submissions received by your review, and will be very helpful to you as manuscripts move through the editorial process. At a glance, you will see the manuscript ID, author name, submission title, editorial status, expedite due dates, editor assigned, and any reminder email dates associated with each article. You will also see recent author correspondence as well as view editor comments including current submission ratings (average).
Additional submission details, including author institution and subject categories, are also available on the Article Details window that automatically appears when you hover your cursor over the article title. This feature will be especially helpful if you assign articles to editors based on subject category.
To view an individual submission, click on either the manuscript number, title, or the blue View Article button that appears on the Article Details window. The resulting screen displays the submission details in neat sections: Editor Notes (if any), Files, Submissions Details, and Expedite Decision Requests. All of the commands needed to manage the submission will be available conveniently on the right side of the page in three main sections: Actions, Contact, and Activity.
Assigning Editors to New Submissions
The first step in the editorial process is to assign an editor. To assign an editor to a manuscript:
- From your My Account page, click Manage Submissions in the Editor Tools section
- Click on the title of the submission in the Not Yet Published submissions list
- Under the Actions section on the right side of the screen, click Assign Editor
- The corresponding page will display a list of available editor names. Click the button next to the name of the editor you want to be responsible for this manuscript.
- If you would like to include a comment with the assignment, enter it in the text box provided
Note: Authors cannot see this text, but all editors can.
- Click Assign. An email message will be sent to the newly assigned editor, informing him/her of the assignment. Any comments will also be included in this email.
The manuscript will now list the last name of the editor in the Editor column in the Manage Submissions screen. After a submission is assigned, all correspondence from the submission’s author(s) will be directed to the assigned editor.
Tip: Interested in seeing the workload of each editor before or after assigning submissions? On the Assign Editor screen, click View the workload report. It will run a report that allows you to track the number of submissions assigned to each editor. We also now track the date that a paper has been assigned to an editor. It is visible next to the editor’s name on the Manage Submissions screen.
Mass Assigning Articles
Prefer to assign multiple articles to an editor at once? You can do so with the Bulk Assign feature. To bulk assign articles:
- On the Manage Submissions screen, click the check boxes beside the articles that you would like to assign
- Click on the blue Bulk Assign button, which can be found just above the list of articles
- On the resulting screen, click the button next to the name of the desired editor
- Click Assign Articles. An email message will be sent to the newly assigned editor, informing him/her of the assignment. Any comments will also be included in this email.
Adding Reminders
Need to remind an editor that an article needs to be reviewed or a decision made? Use Add Reminder, and an email notification with your reminder message will be automatically sent to the assigned editor on a date you select. To set up a reminder:
- Click on the Add Reminder link located in the Contact section the Submission Details page
- Enter a subject and body of your message, and specify a date to send the reminder
- Click Save
Withdrawing Submissions
ExpressO now features integrated auto-withdraw. When an author accepts an offer to be published through ExpressO, editors of other law reviews will be notified immediately, and the submission will be automatically withdrawn from each law review’s submission queue.
Likewise, if an author accepts an offer from your review, the article is automatically withdrawn from the queues of other law reviews. Outside of being published, when an author simply withdraws a paper, it will also trigger the automatic withdraw from the pending submissions queue as well as notify the assigned editor.
Remember, authors can only confirm your offer through ExpressO if you made the offer through your ExpressO account (via the Register Decision link on the Submission Details screen). Therefore, we encourage you to use always use ExpressO to make your offers.
ExpressO allows you to manually withdraw an article as well. However, editors should only use this feature for submissions they’ve uploaded to their law review (where authors have no account access), and only at the request of an author directly. If you wish to reject, you can either use the Register Decision feature to reject, or use Bulk Reject. To withdraw an article from your submissions queue:
- From the Manage Submissions page, click on the title of the submission you wish to withdraw
- On the Submission Details page, click Withdraw Submission in the Actions section
- Select either Notify authors to send an email to the authors or Do not notify authors
- Click Withdraw submission