The Yale Law Journal is excited to announce its tenth annual Student Essay Competition. The Journal’s Student Essay Competition challenges the next generation of legal scholars and practitioners to reflect on emerging legal problems. The competition is open to current law students and recent law-school graduates. Up to three winners will be awarded a $300 cash prize. Winning submissions will be published in the Yale Law Journal Forum, the Journal’s online component. All Forum Essays are fully searchable and available on LexisNexis, Westlaw, and our website. We encourage you to check out the winning Essays from the ninth annual competition on our website here.
Competition Topic: Emerging Issues in International Law
This year, we invite submissions focusing on novel developments in international law, broadly understood. We encourage submissions on a range of topics, including but not limited to how domestic policy affects global standing and foreign relations; international conflicts and use of force; changing dynamics for intergovernmental organizations; forming, enforcing, and withdrawing from multilateral treaties; human-rights monitoring and enforcement; global energy and environmental preservation; international criminal law; dispute resolution between sovereign states; and cyberattacks and national security. We hope to receive both clinical and academic submissions.
Eligibility and Submission Details
The competition is open to all current law students and recent law-school graduates (JDs and LLMs from the Classes of 2025-2029) from any ABA-accredited law school. Each person may submit only one piece. Submissions must be previously unpublished Essays and may not be submitted to other publications during the competition period.
The deadline for submissions is August 30, 2026, at 5 PM ET. Submissions must be no shorter than 6,000 words and no longer than 10,000 words, including footnotes.
Essays must be submitted via the Journal’s online submissions portal. When asked to select “Submission Type,” please select “Student Essay Competition” (do not select “Forum Essay (Students)”).
Please submit your Essay as a Word document. Your submission file should be titled “YLJ Essay Competition – [ESSAY TITLE]” and include a header with “YLJ Essay Competition” in the main text of your document. To ensure anonymized review, please do not include any identifying information, including name, class year, or institution, in your Essay’s body or metadata. To remove document metadata, in Microsoft Word, navigate to the “Info” option under the “File” menu, run “Inspect Document,” then click “Remove All” next to “Document Properties and Personal Information. Failure to anonymize your Essay may disqualify it from consideration by the Selection Committee.
The Selection Committee will consider all submissions anonymously. Winners will be announced in the 2026 fall semester. Authors who submit winning Essays commit to publication in the Yale Law Journal Forum and agree to participate in our full editing process. This process involves both structural and substantive suggestions, as well as sourceciting for content and adherence to Bluebook style.
Disbursement of the cash prize to each winner is subject to any applicable tax reporting and withholding requirements.
Please direct questions about the Student Essay Competition to the Managing Editors, Elias Kaul (elias.kaul@yale.edu) and Alexandra Kirk (alexandra.kirk@yale.edu). We look forward to reading your submissions!
