Vermont Law School student Garrett Chrostek '12 was recently named a winner of the 2012 Distinguished Legal Writing Awards,
the most prestigious award in legal writing in the United States.
It is the second consecutive year that a VLS student has received the award from the Burton Awards for Legal Achievement.
Each year, only 15 students receive the award out of the entries from law schools across the country. This year, the winning law
schools include VLS, Columbia, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Iowa and Penn. Award winners attend a gala black tie event at the
Library of Congress in June. This year's guest of honor will be retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
Chrostek won for his article, "A Critique of Vermont's Right-to-Farm Law and Proposals for Better Protecting the State's
Agricultural Future," 36 Vt. L. Rev. 233 (2011). Garrett credits Vermont for being one of the first states to adopt a right-to-farm
law, but argues that the current law falls short when compared to developments in other states. He offers a number of concrete
and realistic reforms to improve the Vermont law, including strengthening protections against nuisance lawsuits, mandating
administrative proceeding prior to any nuisance lawsuit, using a "size-and-scope restriction to eliminate protections for certain
unfavorable forms of agriculture," exempting farming from certain municipal regulations and allowing farmers to recover attorney
fees for successfully defending against nuisance suits. His note provides timely insights on an important but often overlooked
Vermont law.
