The goal of the National Sports Law Student Writing Competition is to encourage law student scholarship on current topics in sports law. Any law student in good standing who is currently attending an accredited law school within the United States and its territories may enter the competition. The winner of the writing award receives an invitation to attend the National Sports Law Institute's annual conference (currently scheduled to take place on Friday, October 17, 2025) at no cost, and an offer to publish in an issue of the Marquette Sports Law Review.
ELIGIBILITY: Any law student in good standing who is currently attending an accredited law school within the United States and its territories, or has completed their law degree on or before June 1, 2025, may enter the competition. All submissions must be original and unpublished student work that has been produced after September 1, 2024, in other words, work written during the 2024-2025 academic year. Such works could be papers written for a law school course or unpublished student comments written as a membership requirement for a law journal or review. Submissions to this competition cannot be submitted for publication consideration to any publication until the review process is complete for this competition.
REVIEW PROCESS
All submissions will be reviewed by Marquette Sports Law Review's Editorial Advisory Board made up of past Editors-in-Chief of the Marquette Sports Law Review and Marquette Sports Law Journal. The review of submissions will be a blind review, meaning that no author names will be included within the articles being reviewed. No current Marquette University Law School student or faculty member will take part in the review process. The winner of the competition will be notified by email.
2025 COMPETITION GUIDELINES & ENTRY:
1. Students may submit manuscripts focused on any current legal issue in the sports industry.
2. Submissions must follow the Marquette Sports Law Review's Guidelines for Authors found online here. In general, a submission should be at least 20 and no more than 30 pages long. All submissions must follow the citation format provided in the 20th edition of the Harvard Citator. In addition,
- The author's name should not appear within the submission,
- Do not include a title page, instead, the title of the submission should only appear at the top of the first page of the submission, and
- Submissions will only be accepted if produced in Microsoft Word. Do not send a PDF.
3. The National Sports Law Institute will verify that your submission has been accepted by email within 10 days of submission.
4. All submissions to the 2025 competition must be received by Monday, June 2, 2025.
5. Submit your article to the 2025 competition on the webform found here.
QUESTIONS: Please send all questions to the National Sports Law Institute by email to munsli@marquette.edu, subject line “2025 National Sports Law Student Writing Competition.”