from Staff
The Environmental and Land Use section of the Jacksonville Bar Association is hosting its first writing competition in March, with the prize being $500 and a trophy.
The competition will judge any topic addressing one or more aspects of substantive or procedural aspects of environmental law or land use law impacting Florida. The selected issue should be of contemporary importance and readily identifiable by legal readers as relevant to the legal community.
Deadline for submission of materials is postmarked by March 1 and received no later than March 15. The winners will be announced at a presentation ceremony in May.
Contestants are restricted to one entry per author, and submissions must be original and unpublished works of no more than 1,000 words, including any footnotes. Excessive footnotes are discouraged.
All drafting participants in the final submission must be designated as co-authors, and each entry may have up to three co-authors. Research assistants may be designated by name in an appropriate footnote. Citations to legal authority should follow the style conventions prescribed by the Florida Supreme Court and the Florida Bar Journal.
Submissions shall be made in one original paper copy on letter-sized paper, double spaced, and in Microsoft Word or Word Perfect format on a CD-ROM or floppy disk. Submissions may be bound using a staple or binder clip. Each submission must include a cover sheet or cover letter containing the author’s name, address, telephone number and title of the submitted piece, and must be signed by the submitting author(s).
Any author submitting to the competition will be deemed to agree that the work submitted is original, the submitting author is the author of the work and the submitting author grants publication rights to the Jacksonville Bar Association or its designated printer for inclusion into Bar periodicals.
Submitting authors will be notified by mail once their entry has been received. Incomplete or late submissions will not be considered.
Submissions will be judged by a panel of senior lawyers in the fields of environmental and land use law and members of the bench. Judging criteria will include presentation and the quality of the literary construction, organization, perspective, objectivity, reader appeal, and mastery of the subject.
The Section of Environmental and Land Use Law Inaugural Writing Competition is open to all licensed attorneys residing within Florida, members of the bench of the state, federal, and administrative courts of Florida, corporate in-house counsel practicing and residing within Florida, and members of the faculty of the law schools of Florida.
The competition is not open to law students, non-attorney professionals practicing in the environmental sciences or the field of urban and regional planning, private lawyers who are not simultaneously members of the Florida Bar and residents of Florida, actively serving officers or section chairs of the Jacksonville Bar Association, and employees of any organization sponsoring the competition.
All submissions must be addressed to the Jacksonville Bar Association, attention: Michael Cavendish, chair, JBA Environmental and Land Use Section, 1301 Riverplace Blvd., Suite 730, Jacksonville, FL 32207.
For further information contact [email protected].