Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Law Students Should Participate in Legal Writing Competitions

Writing competitions are wonderful things. They motivate you to sharpen your research and writing skills on a topic of law you care about, and they allow you to show an employer that you have the discipline and skill necessary to do outstanding written legal work. In addition, should you happen to win, your paper is typically published in the journal of the organization that sponsored the competition, you are often invited to attend annual awards banquets on the house, and, of course, there are the cash prizes. Yes, cash money, sometimes running into thousands of dollars.

There are dozens and dozens of annual writing competitions sponsored by just as many organizations and covering a plethora of practice areas. In other words, there is a writing competition for just about everyone. Rather than reinvent the wheel and post them all here, a simple Google search yields good results. For example, you can go here and here. You also can visit bar association websites, such as the American Bar Association, to find other competitions.

We strongly encourage you to search out these writing competitions and dive into them. Winning papers create star power on a resume, and the coin you may receive for winning is, well, enriching.

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