2025 Affordable Housing & Community Development

Description
This writing competition ("Competition") is sponsored by the Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development Law ("Forum") of the American Bar Association ("ABA"), 321 N. Clark Street, Chicago, IL 60654 (the "Sponsor").
The goal of the competition is to encourage law students to become involved in the Forum. It is also intended to attract students to affordable housing, community development, or pro bono practice fields, and to encourage scholarship in these fields. Each entrant must follow the rules of the competition detailed herein.

Eligibility:
Open to all law students who are at the time of entry, (a) enrolled in a law school that is at the time of entry, ABA Accredited, (b) member of the ABA and the Forum, (c) at least 21 years old, and (d) U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. Employees of the ABA, its respective affiliates, and immediate family or household members of such employees are not eligible for the Competition.

Topic:
Entries should address any legal issue regarding affordable housing, fair housing and/or community
development law.

Submission Requirements:

  1. Entries must be original, unpublished work. Any relevant article or essay may be submitted for the competition, including writing submitted for academic credit. Submissions must not have been previously published in any media. Only one essay, per competition theme, may be submitted by each entrant. Failure to submit an original essay will result in disqualification and selection of a new winner. Entries should be between 25-50 double-spaced pages, with 1-inch margins, in Times New Roman, 12 pt. size Font. Articles should include footnotes in Bluebook format (single spaced in Times New Roman, 10 pt. size font and which shall count towards the word limit).
  2. Entries should be submitted in Word format. All author-identifying information should be removed from the entry
  3. A separate title page should be attached and must contain the entry's title, the student's name, law school and expected graduation year, and the student's contact information including mailing address, phone number(s), and email address
  4. Entries must be submitted at: ABA Forum Student Writing Competition Entry Form, no later than 11:59 PM Central Time, on March 10, 2025. The Sponsor is not responsible for errors or for lost, late, or misdirected email, or telecommunication or hardware or software failures, including by reason of any bug or computer virus or other failure.
  5. The ABA prohibits the use of all generative artificial intelligence, including large language models, to create any portion of a contestant's written submission for this competition whether in the research, writing, or editing phase. Generative AI in this context includes, but is not limited to, OpenAI's "GPT" series, BLOOM, Jasper, BERT, Galactica, and Lex. Note that for these purposes, AI does not include basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references, etc. Upon submission of the work product, contestants must affirm that they did not utilize AI in the preparation of their written work product. The ABA reserves the right to screen submissions for use of AI through an AI detector. Contestants utilizing AI to generate their work product in whole or in part will be disqualified. If it is determined after the winner is announced and the prize is awarded that the winning contestant utilized AI to generate the written submission in whole or in part, then the contestant will forfeit the winning designation and shall return the prize. A newwinner will then be selected.

Selection and Notification of Winners:
The entries will be judged anonymously by a five (5) person committee comprised of members of the Forum. Decision of the Sponsor (including the committee judging the entries) are final. Entries will be judged based on the following criteria: clarity of the topic, significance of the topic, manner in which the topic is treated, organization, quality of analysis, quality of research, authority and citations, and quality of grammar, syntax, and form. The winning entry will be notified by email by April 13, 2025, 11:59 pm Central Time. The winner must acknowledge and confirm agreement to the terms and conditions of winning the competition no later than April 28, 2025, after which he/she forfeits the prizes and another winner may be selected.

Award:
A single winning entry, as judged by the selection committee, will be eligible to receive a prize of: (a) a $1,000 cash prize; (b) a round-trip coach airfare; and (c) lodging at the conference hotel. Winner will be solely responsible for reporting and payment of all taxes (federal, state, local, or other) on prizes, which will include the value of any accommodations and airfare. Winner will be required to complete a W-9, affidavit of eligibility, tax acknowledgment and liability release for tax purposes. All forms must be completed and returned via email to Dawn R. Holiday at dawn.holiday@americanbar.org within 15 business days of receipt, or prizes will be considered forfeited and another winner may be named. The decision of the Sponsor, including the judging committee, is final.
At the sole discretion of the Sponsor, the winning essay may be selected for publication in the Journal. If selected for publication, winner will be required to sign a standard publication agreement giving the ABA the right of first publication. Please note: The Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development Law must have the first right of publication of the selected essay.
Winning entrant, if his/her piece is selected for publication, agrees to work with the Editorial Board of the ABA Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Development Law to prepare the piece for publication. If the Winning Entrant chooses not to finalize the piece for publication with assistance and feedback from the Editorial Board, the Forum may choose to revoke the prize and award it to another entrant.