James E Beckley Securities Arbitration & Law Competition

09/15/23

• Student

Open

Public Investors Advocate Bar Association

Eligibility. The competition is open to all students who a􀆩end a law school in the United States. Full‐􀆟me students who are not law students but who write law‐related papers as part of a course at an American law school are also eligible. The submission must not have already been published or accepted for publishing in any
other journal. Employees of PIABA (except for students working less than 20 hours per week) are not eligible to enter the competition.

Criteria and Judging
All entries will be judged anonymously by the Compe􀆟􀆟on Judges, who will select the winning submissions. The PIABA Foundation will notify the award winners in early October. The Judges reserve the right not to award any prizes if it is determined that no entries are of sufficient quality to merit selection that year. Entries will be judged based on the following criteria: quality of research and authority provided; accuracy and clarity of the analysis; compliance with legal writing standards and technical quality of writing, including organization, grammar, syntax, and form. Strong preference will be given to articles that advocate pro‐investor positions, provide updates on or surveys of securities or ADR law, and/or are consistent with The PIABA Foundation’s mission of promoting the education and interests of the public investor in securities and commodities arbitration, protection public investors from abuses in the arbitration process, and making securities and commodities arbitration fair through legislative reforms to arbitration forum providers.

Submission Deadline
Entries must be received through www.piaba.org no later than 5
pm eastern on September 15, 2023. The contestant’s name and
other identifying markings such as school name are not to be
on any copy of the submi􀆩ed entry. The PIABA Foundation will
assign a random number to each entry and will record this number
on all copies of each submission. Neither the contestant’s
identity nor his or her academic institution will be known to any
Competition Judge. Each entrant may submit only one entry.
The form and these rules also appear on bit.ly/2023Beckley
 

Format
Submissions should be on one of the topics listed above. The
text of a submission must be double‐spaced, with twelve‐point
font and one‐inch margins. Any Questions Presented sec􀆟on,
the Statement of the Facts / Statement of the Law section, the
Argument sec􀆟on, and/or the Conclusion together are a minimum of 15 pages and a maximum of 30 pages. If the submission covers both a topic among those listed above and a topic not listed above, only the topic listed above will be evaluated. Submissions will not be penalized for arguing a position that would limit investor rights rather than expand them.