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Writing Competitions for Law Students: Regulatory & Administrative Law

Tip

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.  

Regulatory & Administrative Law

Gellhorn-Sargentich Law Student Essay Award Competition

  • Sponsor: American Bar Association Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section
  • Topic: "The entry must discuss any topic relating to administrative law."
  • Format requirements in 2024 Competition included: "Submissions may not exceed 14,000 total words including footnotes and appendices, but not including the title page, and table of contents, if any. (At the discretion of the Section, the winning student may be asked to prepare a shorter version for inclusion in the Administrative and Regulatory Law News.)."  "If the submission has been previously published or submitted for publication, the cover page must indicate to which publication the work was submitted and if relevant the actual or anticipated publication date.  Essays must be the work of the submitting student without substantial editorial input from others.  Co-authored papers are ineligible."
  • Eligibility requirements in 2024 Competition included: "The Competition is open to law students who are, at the time of entry, (a) enrolled in an ABA-accredited law school, (b) members of the ABA and the Section, (c) at least 21 years old, and (d) U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents.  Employees of the ABA, its affiliates, and immediate family or household members of such employees are not eligible for
    the Competition."
  • Entry procedure in 2024 Competition was: "There is no entry form. Entrants must submit two files to Section Director Anne Kiefer via email to anne.kiefer@americanbar.org.  The first file should consist only of a cover page showing the paper’s title and the entrant’s name, law school, year of expected graduation, mailing and email address, phone number, and ABA Membership ID number.  If the essay was previously submitted for publication, the cover page should also indicate to which publication the work was submitted, and if relevant, the actual or anticipated publication date.  The second file consists of the entire paper with a cover page that includes nothing but the title; the contestant’s name and other identifying information, such as school name, MAY NOT appear on any page within this file."
  • Prize in 2024 Competition was: "A single winning entry, as judged by the selection committee, will receive (a) a $5,000 cash prize and (b) complimentary registration for the Virtual Live Administrative Law Conference being held November 7-8, 2024."  "At the sole discretion of the Section and the respective editorial boards, the winning entry may be selected for publication in the Administrative and Regulatory Law News and/or the Administrative Law Review.  If selected for publication, winner will be required to sign a standard publication agreement giving the ABA the right of first publication."
  • Deadline for submission in 2024 Competition was: June 30, 2024.

Richard D. Cudahy Writing Competition on Regulatory and Administrative Law (annual)

  • Sponsor: American Constitution Society (ACS)
  • Topic in 2024 Competition was: American regulatory or administrative law, broadly construed.  See Competition Details: Content for examples of appropriate subjects.
  • Format in 2024 Competition was: "Submissions must be original academic works that are either unpublished or published no more than one year prior to the competition deadline....A wide range of formats are eligible and encouraged, from traditional full-length law review articles to less academic, lightly-cited essays written to be accessible to a wide audience. Entries submitted must be in Word format and any citations in submissions should appear in footnotes, not endnotes.  Submissions should be less than 25,000 words, not including footnotes. Shorter submissions are strongly encouraged."
  • Eligibility requirements in 2024 Competition included: "The competition is open to all lawyers and law students.  Practicing lawyers, policymakers, academics, and law students all are encouraged to participate.  To be considered for the law student category the author(s) must be currently enrolled in a J.D. or LLM program at a U.S. law school."
  • Prizes in 2024 Competition were: "The author of the winning paper in each category (lawyer and law student) will receive a cash prize of $1,500. The winning papers will receive special recognition at the 2024 ACS National Convention, on the ACS website, and potentially through other means agreed upon by the authors and ACS.  For example, the Harvard Law and Policy Review (HLPR) will consider publication of appropriate pieces that meet HLPR’s guidelines."
  • Deadline for submission in 2024 Competition was: February 5, 2024.