Business Law Section Annual Law Student Writing Competition

The Business Law Section sponsors an annual Student Writing Competition, open to all students who are candidates for the JD or LLM degree at an accredited law school during the year in which the article is submitted. The student articles submitted in a given year that are judged first, second, and third best, provided they are of publishable quality and otherwise meet the criteria of the Competition, will receive cash prizes of $2,000, $1,500, and $1,000, respectively. At the discretion of the editors, they also will be published in the NYSBA NY Business Law Journal, which is sponsored by the Section in cooperation with Albany Law School and is published in the Spring and Fall. Additional cash prizes may be awarded in the discretion of the Section, and the Section reserves the right to award some, all, or none of the prizes, depending on its determination of quality of submissions. Entries that do not qualify for cash prizes may also be considered for publication in the Journal.

Articles submitted will be judged on the following criteria:

  • Relevance to the Journal’s audience (New York business lawyers)
  • Timeliness of the topic
  • Originality
  • Quality of research and writing
  • Clarity and conciseness

The manuscript should follow blue book cite format (using endnotes rather than footnotes) and be a minimum of 3,000 words (there is no maximum). Submissions should be made by February 15 for the Spring issue and August 15 for the Fall issue of the Journal. All submissions become the property of the NYSBA and the Business Law Journal. By submitting an article, the student is deemed to consent to its publication, whether or not a cash prize is awarded.

To enter, the student should submit an original, unpublished manuscript in Word format to David L. Glass, editor in chief, NYSBA New York Business Law Journal ([email protected]). The student should include a brief biography, including law school attended, degree for which the student is a candidate, and expected year of graduation.

Congratulations to the 2017 Writing Competition Winners!

Recognized May 24, 2018 at the Business Law Section Spring Meeting (New York, NY)

Missed the winning entries? Business Law Section members can access past issues of the NY Business Law Journal 24/7 at www.nysba.org/businesslawjournal 

1st Prize:  Niyati Sangani, New York Law School 
“Cybersecurity and Its Impact on the Financial Services Industry”  (published Summer 2017 Journal

2nd Prize: Davide Szep, Fordham University School of Law
"Anti-Money Laundering and Privacy: Are They Interrelated or In Conflict?”  (published Winter 2017

3rd Prize:  Grace Nealon, Albany Law School
"The Supreme Court’s Dodd-Frank Dilemma: Should Internal Whistleblowers Be Protected?” (published Winter 2017)

2016 Winners:

1st prize - Caitlin Dance, New York Law School
"In re Coinflip, Inc."

2nd prize - Lawrence Crane-Moscowitz, Vanderbilt University Law School
"Except For All the Others: A Compromise Proposal for Correcting the Incentives of Credit Rating Agencies in the Wake of the Dodd-Frank Act"

2015 Winners:

1st prize - Amanda A. Godkin and Matthew K. Mobilia, Albany Law School
Co-authors of "Emerging Equities in Paying for Municipal Services – The Problem with the Real Property Tax" (published in the NY Business Law Journal, Summer 2015)

2nd prize - Amanda Evans, University of Richmond School of Law
"Successfully Advocating for Gender Parity on Corporate Boards"  (published in the NY Business Law Journal, Summer 2015)

2014 Winners:

1st prize – Richard Jones, New York Law School
“The Counterintuitive Effects of the Volcker Rule and the Push-Out Rule”  (published in the NY Business Law Journal, Summer 2014) 

2nd prize – Nithya Narayanan, Harvard Law School
“America’s Tweak to the Loser Pays Rule: A Board-Insulating Mechanism?” (published in the NY Business Law Journal, Winter 2014)