The ABA Administrative Law Section is now soliciting submissions for the 2022 Gellhorn-Sargentich Law Student Essay Award. The Section welcomes submissions discussing any topic in administrative law. All entries must be emailed by 7:00 pm ET on June 30, 2022.

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.

Created in 2006, the Gellhorn-Sargentich Law Student Essay Award Competition (“Competition”) honors the memory of two men who left us too soon: Ernest Gellhorn, a distinguished law dean, administrative law professor, and practitioner who was Chair of the American Bar Association (“ABA”) Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice (“Section”); and Thomas Sargentich, a distinguished administrative law professor at American University’s Washington College of Law who was a great friend of the Section. The Competition is sponsored by the Section, located at 1050 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20036 (the “Sponsor”). The goal of the Competition is to encourage law students to become involved in the Section, attract students to the administrative law practice fields, and to encourage scholarship in these fields. Each entrant must follow the rules of the Competition detailed herein.

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.

Submissions must be in Microsoft Word. The text of the essay must be double-spaced, in twelve-point font, with one-inch margins; footnotes should be single-spaced, also in twelve-point font and with one-inch margins and page numbering. Citations may be embedded in text or set out in footnotes and should conform to the current edition of the Uniform System of Citation (Bluebook). End-notes are not permitted. 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. Failure to submit an original essay will result in disqualification and may result in the selection of a new winner. Only one essay may be submitted per entrant.