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Writing Competitions for Law Students: Legal History

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Sponsors/facilitators of student writing competitions provide more detailed instructions and rules at their websites.  Students need to review the information and rules available at these websites.  

Legal History

2024 CSCHS Selma Moidel Smith Student Writing Competition in California Legal History

  • Sponsor: California Supreme Court Historical Society (CSCHS)
  • Topic: 2024 Student Writing Competition Announcement states: "We encourage all those working on California legal history (NOT just the history of California courts) to apply. Papers may include elements of digital humanities and may also be co-authored."  The  Announcement describes the topics of recent winning papers.
  • Format: "We generally encourage papers of at least 7,500 and no more than 15,000 words, including notes and other explanatory matter."  "The paper should also be unpublished, and all prize winners will receive an offer to publish in California Legal History, CSCHS’s journal."
  • Eligibility requirements in 2024 Student Writing Competition Announcement include: "The competition is open to students and recent graduates in history and/or law, provided that they did not have full-time academic employment at the time the paper was written."
  • Prizes: 2024 Student Writing Competition Announcement states: "$5,000 first-place, $2,500 second-place, and $1,000 third-place prizes will be awarded to the best papers on California state or colonial history, broadly considered."
  • Deadline: "Submissions are due by June 1, 2024."

Irish Legal History Society Student Essay Competition

  • Sponsor: Irish Legal History Society
  • Topic & Eligibility requirements: "Undergraduates and postgraduates are invited to submit essays on any period of Irish legal history to compete for the Irish Legal History Society Student Essay Competition, now in its third year."  "The competition is open to undergraduate and postgraduate students."
  • Format: "Essays must be no longer than 5,000 words (including all references)."
  • Prize: "The winning entrant will receive a prize of €250."
  • Deadline: "Essays should be received no later than 31st May 2024."

Morris L. Cohen Student Essay Competition (annual)

  • Sponsors: Legal History and Rare Books Section of the American Association of Law Libraries, in cooperation with The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
  • Topic: "Essays may address any topic related to legal history, rare law books, or legal archives; criteria on which papers will be judged include originality of topic or approach, quality and depth of research and analysis, clarity of presentation and contribution to the field."
  • Format: 2024 Full Explanation states: "Essays should be at least 5,000 words and no more than 10,000 words (excluding footnotes). The Committee anticipates entries in the range of approximately 20 to 30 double-spaced pages, including footnotes (preferred) or endnotes, but entries must fall within the word count requirements regardless of page length."  "No essay or portion of an essay that has been published, or submitted or accepted for publication before May 15, 2024, will be eligible for consideration.  Before submitting an essay, authors are responsible for having conducted a search to ensure that a substantially similar paper has not been published elsewhere."  This web page links to:
  • Eligibility requirements in 2024 Full Explanation include: "Full and part-time students currently enrolled in accredited graduate programs in library science, law, history, or related fields are eligible to enter the competition.  Membership in AALL is not required.  The competition is open to students attending graduate school either in the United States or abroad, and students need not be U.S. citizens to enter.  Students attending foreign graduate schools who submit entries to the competition may be asked to provide evidence of current accreditation of their schools by the appropriate government or administrative entities."
  • Prizes: "The winner will receive a $1,000 prize from The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., and will present the essay at an LHRB-SIS sponsored webinar.  The winner and runner-up will have the opportunity to publish their essays in LHRB-SIS’s online scholarly journal Unbound: A Review of Legal History and Rare Books."
  • Deadline: "The entry package must be submitted electronically by 11:59 p.m., May 15, 2024 (EDT) to lhrb.sis@gmail.com"