26th Annual Smith-Babcock-Williams Student Writing Competition

The Planning & Law Division of the American Planning Association is pleased to announce its 26th Annual Smith-Babcock-Williams Student Writing Competition. The winning entry in the competition will be awarded a prize of $2,500 and will be submitted for publication in The Urban Lawyer, the law journal of the American Bar Association's Section of State & Local Government Law. In addition to the first prize, the Competition will award a second prize of $1,000 and up to two Honorable Mention prizes of $250.

RULES

1. Eligibility. The competition is open to law students at ABA accredited law schools and planning students at schools listed in the Guide to Graduate Education in Urban and Regional Planning (13th ed.) who are enrolled in or who will complete a program of study leading to the J.D., LL.B., Masters or Ph.D. degree during the 2008-09 academic year. All entries must be the work of an individual, jointly-authored entries will not be considered. Entries may have been written for another purpose within the last year -- e.g., a paper submitted for a course or internship -- but must not have been previously published.

2. Subject Matter. Entries should demonstrate original thought on a question of significance in either planning or areas of law germane to planning (e.g., land use, local government or environmental law) and will be evaluated based on: (1) originality; (2) contribution to the understanding or development of the fields of planning and law; (3) quality of scholarship; and (4) quality and organization of writing.

3. Publication. As a condition of publication, the author grants to the American Bar Association the following rights: 1) the exclusive right of first publication of the Work throughout the world as part of the publication The Urban Lawyer; 2) the nonexclusive right to reprint the Work whenever necessary and to license use of the Work, or any part thereof, in any medium or form of communication in the English language, to others; and 3) the right to use the Work, or any part thereof, in any other publication produced by the American Bar Association. The author shall reserve all exclusive rights not specifically granted to the American Bar Association and will have the rights not specifically granted to the American Bar Association and will have the rights, after the Work has been published, to print the Work in any publication, provided that the author included in the publication the proper credit to the American Bar Association for prior publication of the work.

4. Directions for Entries. Entries shall not exceed forty-five (45) pages with a 1" margin on allsides. Text should be double-spaced in a minimum ten-point pitch. Manuscripts should follow the stylistic guidelines of the Chicago Manual of Style (latest edition) published by the University of Chicago Press. All citations should be footnoted and should conform to A Uniform System of Citation (latest edition) published by the Harvard Law Review Association (the Blue Book).

5. Submission of Entries. To enter the competition, send five (5) copies of your entry, postmarked no later than June 8, 2009, to Professor Alan Weinstein at the address below. Each copy must have two title pages: the first should contain the title of the entry, the name/address/e-mail of the student, and identify the student's school and date of graduation; the second should contain only the title of the entry.

Professor Alan Weinstein
Cleveland-Marshall College of Law
Cleveland State University
2121 Euclid Avenue, LB 138
Cleveland, Ohio 44115-2214