Writing Competitions
Maryland students recently have won several national legal writing awards, including first prize in last year's Environmental Law Institute national writing competition.
Upcoming Competitions and Competition Collections
- Paul Cordish Memorial Writing Competition
For UM Law Students Only
Supported by the National Association of Public Insurance Adjusters (NAPIA) and the Paul Cordish Memorial Fund, this competition is intended to spur legal research in the field of insurance adjusting by awarding three different prize categories and values (first place, second place, and third place) to three UM law student entrants who write the best papers on an issue related to insurance law: ethical issues and/or legal issues related to the public adjusting profession. Additional information and prior papers are available on the NAPIA site. - Online Catalogue Database of Essay Competitions
A comprehensive list of essay competitions, including sponsor information and competition details. This site is searchable by area of law, deadline, and prize value. (Provided by the University of Richmond School of Law.) - Legal Writing Competition Blog
Highlights various writing competitions and displays featured competitions in order of approaching deadline date. (Provided by the University of Arkansas School of Law). - Hieros Gamos' Competition Collection
A smaller compilation of essay contests; updated regularly. - ABA Scholarships, Essays, & Writing Competitions
The Legal Writing Center's bulletin boards (located outside of room 400) contain the most up-to-date information regarding all current legal writing competitions advertized through the law school. These writing competition opportunities are posted on the bulletin boards as soon as we receive notice of them, so please check back frequently; new competitions arrive weekly.
UM Law Students: If you are considering entering a paper in a competition and want to brush up on scholarly writing tips or citation information, please check out the Legal Writing Center’s Blackboard page; this page contains a large collection of resources and information available to you to assist you with all aspects of your writing.
Outstanding Student Papers in the DigitalCommons@ UM Law
In 2006, the law school established an area within the DigitalCommons@ UM Law repository of law school scholarship to collect and highlight outstanding student papers.
This collection features published articles and articles accepted for publication that were written by University of Maryland School of Law students, as well as outstanding papers written by our law school's students for national, legal writing competitions. Please note that journal articles accepted for this repository are those published by outside journals only; this collection does not include articles published in any of the University of Maryland School of Law's journals.
If your paper qualifies for this collection and you would like your paper added to it, please email 1) an abstract, 2) the paper, and 3) the name of the journal the paper will be published in and expected publication date, or the sponsor name and details about the specific writing competition the paper won an award through, to: , Associate Director for Technical Services & Administration, and copy , Writing Program Coordinator, and , Legal Writing Program Director.
Please carefully review the abstract and paper you send to us before submitting them, as they will be posted exactly as received. Accordingly, please also remove any personal contact information from your documents that you do not want displayed on our website.
After reviewing the paper and before it is posted, Pamela Bluh will contact the copyright holder for you to obtain the necessary copyright permissions to include your paper in this Digital Repository.
