The Philadelphia Bar Association is pleased to announce the 2022 Legal Writing Competition in honor of the late Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. In so doing, the Bar Association recognizes the importance of excellence in legal writing and seeks to award a student enrolled in an ABA-approved Philadelphia-area law school for authoring a top-quality competition submission. The following information is provided to encourage your participation.
ELIGIBILITY
The Honorable Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg “Pursuit of Justice” Legal Writing Competition is open to full-time and part-time law students who completed their second or third year of study by the end of the 2021-2022 academic year at one of the following six institutions: Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, Rutgers Law School, Temple University Beasley School of Law, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law and Widener University Delaware Law School. Part-time law students who were in their third or later year of study during the 2021-2022 academic year are also eligible. Students must be or have been in good standing at their institutions. Other than being published in a law review or journal at the student’s law school, as described further in the fifth bullet point of the Rules section below, the submission may not have been previously published. The submission also may not have been submitted for any other competition during the time when it is under consideration for this competition. The submission must be the work of one author alone (joint submissions will not be considered), and the author must certify that the submission has been prepared without substantial editing from others.
TOPIC
Candidates may submit a law review quality submission on any topic relating to rights, privileges, and responsibilities under federal law.
AWARDS
The author of the first-place submission will receive a cash award of $2,500 and the publication of the winning submission in The Philadelphia Lawyer and on the Bar
Association’s website and/or in an appropriate Bar Association publication. The winner of the first-place award will be invited to the Annual Meeting of the Philadelphia Bar Association, at which time the award will be presented.
If the Bar Association, in its discretion, determines that it is appropriate, it may also award second and third place prizes. The authors of the second and third place entries will be announced in The Philadelphia Lawyer.
Click here for full details on judging, rules, award, and application information.