Writing Resources
No prior legal study is expected. This page — and the template that comes with your case packet — is everything you need to turn a set of facts into a law review–style paper.
What is a law review–style paper?
It is not a persuasive essay and not a speech. A law review paper takes a legal question, sets out the relevant authorities, weighs the arguments on each side, and reasons to a conclusion — supporting every claim about the law with a citation to where that law is found. You are graded not on eloquence but on the rigour of the reasoning: ambiguities identified, precedents compared, counterarguments met, and the strongest interpretation defended.
In this competition it is a closed universe: every authority you may cite is inside the case packet. You are not researching the law — you are interpreting a fixed record, exactly as a clerk or a law review editor does.
The shape of a paper
There is no single correct structure, but strong papers tend to move like this:
- Introduction — the question, and your answer in one or two sentences.
- Background — the facts and the authorities that govern them, stated neutrally.
- Analysis — the heart of the paper: apply the authorities to the facts, test each side, and show why one reading is stronger.
- Counterarguments — the best case against you, answered honestly.
- Conclusion — what should happen, and why it follows.
Aim for 2,500–3,000 words (excluding footnotes). Concision is scored: say it once, say it precisely.
Bluebook citation — a one-minute primer
The Bluebook is the citation system American law reviews use — the legal world's answer to Harvard or Chicago style. You only need the handful of forms for the authority types in your packet, and they are learnable in an afternoon. Citations go in footnotes, not in the text. The core patterns:
Cite the exact page or section you rely on. Full, free reference: Cornell Law School's Introduction to Basic Legal Citation. To see it in practice, open any student Note in the Harvard Law Review. Your packet lists the correct citation for each authority it contains — copy those forms exactly.
The paper template
A ready-made document with the right margins, a Registration-ID header, a title block, and the section headings above — so your paper is anonymous and correctly formatted before you write a word. Opens in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or Apple Pages.
Two rules that decide everything
- Anonymity. Your Registration ID must appear in the header of every page, and your name must appear nowhere in the document. Judging is double-blind; an identifiable paper can be disqualified.
- Your own work. The use of AI tools in any capacity — drafting, outlining, rewriting, editing, or summarising the packet — is prohibited. Every paper is screened, and AI-assisted work is disqualified. The competition measures your reasoning and your prose.