The Burton Awards: The Oscars of Legal Writing

The Burton Foundation grants awards for achievements in law to firms, individual attorneys, government employees who are responsible for writing statutes and legislation, actors, students, law professors, and influential jurists.  The awards focus on legal writing, but includes other areas such as the greatest legal reform and law firm advertising and newsletters.  The latest award ceremony was held on Monday, June 11th, at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. .  In attendance were four Supreme Court Justices ( Retired Justice Stevens, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Ginsberg, and Chief Justice Roberts), as well as prominent legal scholars, attorneys and jurists.    The crowd was treated to a performance by singer and Tony Award-winning actress Bernadette Peters.

C|M|LAW Professor Karin Mika volunteered as National Publicity Director for this event.

To be eligible for these prestigious awards, one must be nominated by a law school dean or a managing partner in the nation’s 1000 largest law firms.  Here is a list of the current winners and their paper topics.  Scroll down to see the law school winners.   The 2013 forms have not been posted, but deadlines for last year’s nominations were mostly in February or March.  See  Nomination forms.

Photos, provided by Karin Mika are: Ralph Brill (Chicago-Kent), Karin Mika (C|M|LAW) and  Mark Wojcik (John Marshall, Chicago); Chief Justice Roberts.