Cornell Law Library Robert Cantwell Prize for Exemplary Student Research

Cornell Law Library is pleased to award the Cantwell Prize for Exemplary Student Research. Funding for the Prize is provided by an endowment given to the Law Library by Barbara Cantwell in honor of her late husband, Robert Cantwell, a 1956 graduate of Cornell Law School.

Prizes:

First Place – $500.00
Second Place – $250.00

Winners are invited to publish their paper in Scholarship@Cornell Law, a digital repository of the Cornell Law Library. Here, papers are provided with exposure to the global community, including scholars, researchers, and potential employers. Winners are also invited to contribute to a Reading Room display about their research for public exhibition during the year following receipt of the prize.

Eligibility:

To be eligible to win, applicants must:

Be of 2L (JD), 3L (JD), or LLM status at Cornell Law School
Have completed the scholarly research paper in the time period spanning May 2023-May 2024.
Be the sole author of the scholarly research paper

Papers must:

Not have been prepared for summer or other employment.
Be at least 2500 words.
Use with consistency a standard, recognized citation format.

Application Procedure:

Email submissions to Shannon Slack no later than May 20, 2024. Submissions must include:

A cover email listing the author’s name, law school year, degree anticipated, and contact information.
A summary of no more than 500 words describing the research involved, lessons learned from that research process, the purpose for which the paper was written, and the course and professor for whom the paper was written (if applicable). The summary must not indicate publication status of the paper or include any author-identifying information.
The scholarly research paper. Papers must not include any author-identifying information or be formatted for publication in a specific journal.

Selection Criteria:

A judges’ panel composed of research librarians will judge papers based on how well they demonstrate the following:

Sophistication, originality, or unusual depth or breadth in the use of research materials, including, but not limited to, print resources, electronic search engines and databases, primary and secondary legal resources, interdisciplinary resources, and empirical resources.
Exceptional innovation in research strategy, including evidence of ability to locate, select, and critically evaluate research materials.
Skillful synthesis of research results into a comprehensive scholarly analysis.

Prizes are awarded in the judges’ discretion. Not all prizes may be awarded. Judges do not have access to the cover emails or the submitters’ identities.

Past Cantwell Prize Recipients:

2023 Recipients:

First Place: Don’t Touch That Dial: Airing the Case for Banning Broadcasting Industry Noncompete Agreements by Alison Draikiwicz
Second Place: The Case for a Uniform Invention Invention Assignment Agreement Act (UIAAA) by Amanda Shoemaker

2022 Recipients:

First Place: Form CRS in Practice: How the SEC Fails to Protect Retail Investors by Zev T. Chabu
Second Place: An Extraordinary Court in Ordinary Times? A Re-evaluation of Ireland’s Special Criminal Court, Fifty Years On by Diarmuid O’Leary

2021 Recipients:

First Place: Insanity Step Zero: A Modern Application of M’Naghten’s Question Four Test by Michael Mills
Second Place: Iconic Designs, Icon Status, and Intellectual Property: Discussing Copyright and Fashion and the Ideal Mode of Protection for Fashion Designs and Patterns by Bianca Lindau

2020 Recipients:

First Place: Patenting Pot: The Hazy Uncertainty Surrounding Cannabis Patents by Andrew Kingsbury
Second Place: Without the Forbidden Fruit: Returning to the Wild Beast Test by Jennifer Yu

2019 Recipients:

First Place: Regulatory Takings and the Constitutionality of Commercial Rent Regulation in New York City by Henry Topper
Second Place: Incarceration or E-Carceration: California’s SB 10 Bail Reform and the Potential Pitfalls for Pretrial Detainees by Ashley Mullen

2018 Recipient:

A Jury of Your [Redacted]: The Rise and Implications of Anonymous Juries by Leonardo Mangat

2017 Recipients:

First Place: Truth or Dare: A Framework for Analyzing Credibility in Children Seeking Asylum by Karen Smeda
Second Place: Columbia University and Incarcerated Worker Labor Unions Under the National Labor Relations Act by Kara Goad

2016 Recipients:

First Place: An Ode to Sea Turtles & Dolphins: Expanding WTO’s Mandate to Bridge the Trade-Environment Divide by Geary Choe
Second Place: The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Imposing an American Definition of Corruption on Global Markets by Mateo J. de la Torre

2015 Recipients:

First Place: “Nobody’s Saying We’re Opposed to Complying”: Barriers to University Compliance with VAWA and Title IX by Charlotte Savino
Second Place: Don’t Forget About the Jury: Advice for Civil Litigators and Criminal Prosecutors on Differences in State and Federal Courts in New York by Ariel Atlas

2014 Recipients:

First Place: The Religion of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA): Applying the Clergy Privilege to Certain AA Communications by Ari J. Diaconis
Second Place: The Law Review Divide: A Study of Gender Diversity on the Top Twenty Law Reviews by Lynne N. Kolodinsky

2013 Recipients:

First Place: Libor Integrity and Holistic Domestic Enforcement by Milson C. Yu
Second Place: How to Kill Copyright: A Brute-Force Approach to Content Creation by Kirk Sigmon

2012 Recipients:

First Place: Annexation of the Jury’s Role in Res Judicata Disputes: The Silent Migration from Question of Fact to Question of Law by Steven Madrid
Second Place: Targeted Killing and Just War: Reconciling Kill-Capture Missions and the Combatant Civilian Framework by Louis Guard

2011 Recipients:

First Place: Improving Drinking Water Provision under Increasing Global and Regional Economic Integration by William Garthwaite
Second Place: Law on the Books vs. Law in Action: Under-Enforcement of Morocco’s Reformed 2004 Family Law, the Moudawana by Annie Eisenberg