Stanford Law School Legal History Paper Prize
The Stanford Center for Law and History invites paper submissions from SLS students (including all JD and Advanced Degree students) and Stanford History students (both graduate and undergraduate) for the SLS Legal History Paper Prize. Submissions are welcome on any topic in legal history. The prize committee will consider only work completed during the 2025-2026 academic year.
Please include a brief abstract at the beginning of your paper. Please do not include any information in the paper that will identify you. Prize winners from past years are eligible, excluding the most recent competition year. “Honorable mentions” from all years are eligible to apply.
The prize committee will select one Stanford student as the recipient of the Legal History Paper Prize. The winner will receive a $1000 cash award.
Applications will open in Spring 2026.
Have Questions?
Please direct any questions you may have to committee chair, Amalia Kessler: akessler@law.stanford.edu.
Past Winners
Winner, 2024-2025
"Melancton Smith's Role in the Ratification Debates"
Winner, 2023-2024
"A Council of Grand Strategists: The Original Hope, Fear, and Intent of the U.S. Senate in Foreign Affairs"
Winner, 2022-2023
"Guess Who's Coming to Stanford: The Battle for the Desegregation of an Elite Law School"
Winner, 2021-2022
"The Origins of Indigenous Constitutionalism: Choctaw Law and Governance, 1826-1830"
Honorable Mention, 2021-2022
"Who Was Your Grandfather on Your Mother's Side: Seduction, Race, and Gender in 1932 Virginia"
Honorable Mention, 2021-2022
"The Specter of Class in Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Doctrine: Housing Claims and the Burger Court Era"
Winner, 2020-2021
"Debunking The Non-Delegation Doctrine For State Regulation Of Federal Elections"
Honorable Mention, 2020-2021
"'Law by Moses': Hebraic Republicanism in the Constitutional Convention and the Debates over Ratification, 1787-1788"
Winner, 2019-2020
"Crimes of Omission: State Action Doctrine and Anti-Lynching Legislation in the Jim Crow Era"
Honorable Mention, 2019-2020
"Collisions of Sovereignty: Southern State Law Extension Acts in the Removal Era"
