Award for Exemplary Student Research Winners

We are pleased to announce the recipients of the Ross-Blakley Law Library Award for Exemplary Student Research. Their papers demonstrate sophistication and originality in the use of research materials, exceptional innovation in research strategy, and skillful synthesis of research results into a comprehensive scholarly analysis.

The Ross-Blakley Law Library Award for Exemplary Student Research is an annual award which serves as a means to showcase extraordinary student research. If you are a 2L or 3L and would like to enter the competition, please consult the Award for Exemplary Student Research page.

2024

First Place:  Seth Young, Hope for the Hopi: How Certification Marks Can Help the Hopi Tribe Protect its Most Colorful Crop

Second Place:  Melissa Alter, Undoing Past (In)Jury: Adapting to the Loss of Peremptory Challenges

2023

First Place:  Lauren Krumholz, Public Health Consequences of Appellate Standards for Hostile Work Environment Claims

Second Place:  Katharine Greer, Arizona's Failure: Advocating for an Affirmative Defense for Sex-Trafficking Victims in Line with Feminist Legal Reasoning

2022

First Place:  Claire Newfeld, Indian Boarding School Deaths and the Federal Tort Claims Act: A Route to a Remedy

Second Place:  Joanna Jandali, Jammed from Justice: How International Organization Immunity Enshrines Impunity

2021

First Place:  Sarah Brunswick, PFAS Are Forever: Why Unregulated Agricultural Water Is Not a Girl’s Best Friend

Second Place:  Kole Lyons, Fresh from the Freezer: Exploring the "Knead" for Transparent Bread Labeling

2020

First Place:  Brent Bihr, Dark Patterns, Warcraft, and Cybersex: The Addictive Face of Predatory Online Platforms and Pioneering Policies to Protect Consumers

Second Place:  Olivia Stitz, Comity, Tipping Points, and Commercial Significance: What to expect of the Hague Judgments Convention

2019

First Place:  Walter Johnson, Governance Tools for the Second Quantum Revolution

Second Place (tie):  Grant Frazier, Using Your Head: A Different Approach to Tackling the NFL's Concussion Epidemic

Second Place (tie):  Jack Milligan, Malmin v. State's Ipse Dixit: Arizona's Article II, § 8 Is Not of the "Same General Effect and Purpose" as the Fourth Amendment

2018

First Place:  Steven Perlmutter, High Times Ahead: Products Liability in Medical Marijuana

Second Place:  Celeste Robertson, When Bitcoins Buy Opioids: Why Amending the Federal Money Laundering Statutes is Necessary to Combat the Opioid Crisis

2017

First Place:  Chelsea Gulinson, Embryonic Stem Cell Tourism

Second Place:  Jameson Rammell, Polarizing Procedures: Transsexual Inmates, Sex Reassignment Surgery, and the Eighth Amendment

2016

First Place:  Robert Skousen, Redefining New Water: Inland Surface and Groundwater Desalination

Second Place:  Simon Goldenberg, Considering Abusive Marriages in the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Community and Ways for Agunot to Escape

2015

First Place:  Racheal White Hawk, A New Formula for Tribal Internet Gaming

Second Place:  Glennas'ba Augborne, The HEARTH Act: Implementing UN Indigenous Rights Norms to Reconcile the Limitations of Tribal Environmental Sovereignty

2014

First Place:  Jeremiah Chin, Red Law, White Supremacy: Cherokee Freedmen, Tribal Sovereignty and the Colonial Feedback Loop

Second Place:  Jennifer Walston, Arizona’s Domestic Violence Victims Need a More Safety-Centered Approach in Their Pursuit of Family Court Orders

2013

First Place:  Lily Yan, Uncharted Domains and the New Land Rush: Indigenous Rights to Top-Level Domain

Second Place:  Tim Forsman, What the QSA Means for the Salton Sea: California’s Big Blank Check.