September 15 Deadline for Law Student Writing Competition on Social Insurance

One of my students is working on a fascinating research project and I was looking for an appropriate writing competition for him to submit his final paper.  I came across the National Academy of Social Insurance Law Student Writing Award.  The bad news is that I found it too late to benefit my student, as the deadline for submissions is Monday, September 15, 2014.  But the good news is that for those of you with law students who have already written terrific seminar papers and who are looking for a publication site, this might be the place.   

Potential topics include:  Analysis of legal and policy issues relating to any social insurance program. These issues include but are not limited to long-term care, Social Security, Social Security Disability, health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, related public assistance and private employee benefits. Nominations of comparative and interdisciplinary work relating to social insurance protections and policies are encouraged.

Eligibility: Any substantial written work addressing topics relevant to the legal and policy issues creating, modifying, planning, and implementing social insurance programs are eligible for nomination. Papers prepared by any person(s) studying for a J.D. degree at an ABA-accredited law school. Eligible papers may not exceed 10,000 words in length, plus appropriate footnotes. Papers should observe the style specifications of and should be presented in double-spaced format on letter-size pages. All papers or articles completed before January 1, 2013 and September 14, 2014 will be considered.

Nomination Procedure: Nominations for the award can be made by a supervisor of the law student’s research paper, by an active member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, or any full-time faculty member at an ABA-accredited law school.

Our long-time friends at the Borchard Foundation Center on Law and Aging are a sponsor of the competition with the award of top prizes to take place at the NASI annual conference in Washington D.C. in January, 2015.  Perhaps this means that we plan on this opportunity for our students again in future years. (And the top award is nothing to sneeze at — $2,500 plus an opportunity to participate in the conference with expenses paid.)

Additional information, including format and evaluation criteria are available here.