Do you dream of becoming a lawyer one day? Or are you just fascinated by contemporary legal issues sweeping the nation? The Columbia Undergraduate Law Review High School Essay Contest (CULR) exists to promote legal scholarship amongst passionate students interested in the interplay of law, politics, and sociology. If you think you’re ready to try your hand at writing an essay on a “hot” legal topic for CULR, you should: Do preliminary research: Every year, CULR shares a new prompt related to a current legal issue. Unlike other essay competitions, which allow students to choose from a selection of multiple prompts, CULR offers only one. Consequently, it is important to do some preliminary research to make sure you understand the prompt in its entirety. For your first round of research, we recommend drawing from a mix of scholarly sources (journal articles, dissertations, legal texts, etc.) and reputable news articles and websites, so that you understand the issue from a scholarly and contemporary perspective. Select a topic: Just because CULR has shared a prompt, doesn’t mean you don’t need to narrow it down. In 2024, the prompt was: “Freedom of Speech and Social Media: The Battle Between Censorship and Misinformation.” To give you an idea of how students responded, one winning essay was about “Media Literacy and Accountability in the Age of Misinformation” and another was on "Balanceing Freedom of Speech and Comabting Misinformation: Navigating the Digial Age." As you can see, both sutdents selected sub-topics within the prompt (media literacy and the digital age) that are related to the main focus of the prompt but address key aspects of it in detail. On of the best ways to seelct your topic is by reviewing your preliminary research and identfiying any underlying themes or issues that interest you. Write an outline: Before you write your first draft, we strongly recommend writing a detailed outline that includes a thesis, research findings, key points, and a breakdown of each paragraph, at the bare minimum. As CULR has a 1,500 word maximum, you might want to follow this basic structure: Introduction: where you state your topic, approach, background research, and narrow down to your thesis. Key terms: where you define 1-2 legal terms necessary for your readers to understand when they read your essay. Court Case I: where you reference, discuss, and analyze a specific court case relevant to your thesis. Court Case II: where you reference, discuss, and analyze a second court case relevant to your thesis. Objections: where you mention any opposing arguments others may make and state why they are invalid based on your thesis. Conclusion: where you restate your thesis and offer a final, takeaway message for your readers. Remember, while you are working on your outline, you should be conducting a second round of deep research—this time, drawing from relevant, scholarly sources and findings from court cases. Try to gather around 20 scholarly sources minimum. Edit and polish your draft: After you transition from your outline to your first draft, be sure to carefully edit and polish your final draft before submitting it to CULR. At this stage, we recommend re-reviewing previously winning essays to ensure that your essay aligns with the tone, type of content, level of detail, and style of winning essays. As the renowned American lawyer, Floyd Abrams, once said, “The difficult task, after one learns how to think like a lawyer, is relearning how to write like a human being.” With a little research, thinking like a lawyer isn’t as hard as you might think. But writing like a human being? That’s where the magic of essay writing comes in—and we’re confident you’ll excel.
