Every year, distinguished legal scholars from around the country review scholarly papers written by professors from AALS member schools. Those papers the committee deems most outstanding are selected to receive the AALS Scholarly Paper Award. The award is presented to each winning author at the AALS Annual Meeting every January. The competition’s selection committee has recognized the following outstanding papers over the last 33 years:
Winner |
Talia Gillis |
Columbia Law School |
“The Input Fallacy” |
Honorable Mention |
Courtney Cox |
Fordham Law School |
“Legitimizing Lies” |
Honorable Mention |
Nicholas Serafin |
Santa Clara University School of Law |
“Redefining the Badges of Slavery” |
Winner |
Matthew A. Shapiro |
Rutgers Law School |
“Distributing Civil Justice” |
Honorable Mention |
Lindsey D. Simon |
University of Georgia School of Law |
“Bankruptcy Grifters” |
Honorable Mention |
Diego A. Zambrano |
Stanford Law School |
“Foreign Dictators in U.S. Court” |
Honorable Mention |
Guha Krishnamurthi |
South Texas College of Law Houston |
“The Case For the Abolition of Criminal Confessions” |
Co-Winner |
Meghan M. Boone |
Wake Forest University School of Law |
“Reproductive Due Process” |
Co-Winner |
Jonathan Gould |
University of California, Berkeley School of Law |
“Law Within Congress” |
Co-Winner |
Maureen E. Brady |
Harvard Law School |
“The Forgotten History of Metes and Bounds” |
Co-Winner |
James D. Nelson |
University of Houston Law Center |
“Corporate Disestablishment” |
Winner |
Aaron Tang |
University of California, Davis |
“Rethinking Political Power in Judicial Review” |
Honorable Mention |
William Ortman and Daniel Epps |
Wayne State University, Washington University in St. Louis |
“The Lottery Docket” |
Honorable Mention |
Andrew Verstein |
Wake Forest University |
“The Jurisprudence of Mixed Motives” |
Winner |
Christopher Walker |
Ohio State University |
“Legislating in the Shadows” |
Honorable Mention |
Mila Sohoni |
University of San Diego |
“Crackdowns” |
2016 |
Winner |
Jill Fraley |
Washington and Lee |
“An Unwritten History of Waste Law” |
2015 |
Winner |
David Horton |
University of California, Davis |
“In Partial Defense of Probate – Evidence from Alameda County, California” |
2015 |
Honorable Mention |
Jeremy McClane |
University of Connecticut |
“Agency and Teamwork: Measuring Benefits and Unintended Consequences in Securities Transactions” |
2014 |
Winner |
Christopher W. Schmidt |
IIT Chicago-Kent |
“Divided by Law: The Sit-Ins and the Role of the Courts in the Civil Rights Movement” |
2014 |
Honorable Mention |
Hiro N. Aragaki |
Loyola Law School Los Angeles |
“’Contract’ or ‘Procedure’? Reinterpreting the Federal Arbitration Act” |
2014 |
Honorable Mention |
Ozan O. Varol |
Lewis and Clark Law School |
“Temporary Constitutions” |
2013 |
Winner |
Alexandra V. Huneeus |
University of Wisconsin |
“International Criminal Law by Other Means: The Quasi-Criminal Jurisdiction of the Human Rights Bodies” |
2013 |
Honorable Mention |
Katie Eyer |
Rutgers University – Camden |
“Constitutional Colorblindness and the Family” |
2012 |
Honorable Mention |
Chimène I. Keitner |
UC Hastings |
“The Forgotten History of Foreign Official Immunity” |
2012 |
Honorable Mention |
Rachel Harmon |
Univ. of Virginia |
“The Problem of Policing” |
2011 |
Co-Winner |
Ashira Pelman Ostrow |
Hofstra University |
“Process Preemption in Federal Siting Regimes” |
2011 |
Co-Winner |
Melissa Murray |
Berkeley |
“Marriage as Punishment” |
2010 |
Winner |
Christopher Bruner |
Washington and Lee |
“Power and Purpose in the ‘Anglo-American’ Corporation” |
2010 |
Honorable Mention |
Brian Galle |
Florida State University |
“Foundation or Empire? The Role of Charity in a Federal System” |
2010 |
Honorable Mention |
Andrew A. Schwartz |
University of Colorado |
“A ‘Standard Clause Analysis’ of the Frustration Doctrine and the Material Adverse Change Cause” |
2009 |
Co-Winner |
Laura Cisneros |
Texas Southern University |
“Standing Doctrine, Judicial Technique, and the Gradual Shift from Rights-Based Constitutionalism to Executive Constitutionalism” |
2009 |
Co-Winner |
Deborah Widiss |
Brooklyn Law School |
“Shadow Precedents and the Separation of Powers: Statutory Interpretation of Congressional Overrides” |
2008 |
Winner |
Anne Joseph O’Connell |
UC Berkeley |
“Political Cycles of Rulemaking” |
2007 |
Winner |
Rashmi Dyal-Chand |
Northeastern |
“Human Worth as Collateral” |
2007 |
Honorable Mention |
Jennifer Hendricks |
University of Tennessee |
“Essentially a Mother” |
2007 |
Honorable Mention |
Alexandra Natapoff |
Loyola, Los Angeles |
“Underenforcement” |
2006 |
Winner |
Mark D. Rosen |
University of Chicago-Kent |
“Was Shelley v. Kraemer Correctly Decided? – Some New Answers” |
2006 |
Honorable Mention |
Sonia K. Katyal |
Fordham University |
“Semiotic Disobedience” |
2005 |
Co-Winner |
Amanda L. Tyler |
The George Washington University |
“Continuity, Coherence, and the Canons” |
2005 |
Co-Winner |
Mark A. Drumbl |
Washington and Lee University |
“Collective Violence and Individual Punishment: The Criminality of Mass Atrocity” |
2004 |
Winner |
Norman Warren Spaulding |
University of California, Berkeley |
“Constitutions as Counter-Monument: Federalism, Reconstruction and the Problem of Collective Memory” |
2004 |
Honorable Mention |
Peter Jeremy Smith |
The George Washington University |
“The Sources of Federalism: Federalists, Anti-Federalists, and the Court’s Quest for Original Meaning” |
2004 |
Honorable Mention |
Grant M. Hayden |
Hofstra University |
“Resolving the Dilemma of Minority Representation” |
2003 |
Winner |
Suzanne B. Goldberg |
Rutgers University, Newark |
“Equality Without Tiers” |
2003 |
Honorable Mention |
Orin S. Kerr |
The George Washington University |
“The Problem of Perspective in Internet Law” |
2003 |
Honorable Mention |
Guy-Uriel E. Charles |
University of Minnesota |
“Racial Identity & Political Association: Why The Racial Districting Cases Violate The Associational Rights of Voters of Color” |
2002 |
Winner |
Jonathan T. Molot |
The George Washington University |
“Reexaming Marbury in the Administrative State: A Structural and Institutional Defense of Judicial Power over Statutory Interpretation” |
2002 |
Honorable Mention |
Madhavi Sunder |
University of California, Davis |
“Cultural Dissent” |
2001 |
Winner |
Susan D. Carle |
American University |
“Race, Class and Legal Ethics in the Early NAACP” |
2001 |
Honorable Mention |
John C. Coates |
Harvard |
“Explaining Variation in Takeover Defenses: Failure in the Corporate Law Market” |
2001 |
Honorable Mention |
Anupam Chander |
University of California, Davis |
“Diaspora Bonds” |
2000 |
Winner |
Caleb E. Nelson |
University of Virginia |
“Preemption” |
2000 |
Honorable Mention |
Annelise Riles |
Northwestern University |
“The Transnational Appeal of Formalism: The Case of Japan’s Netting Law” |
1999 |
Winner |
Alan C. Michaels |
Ohio State University |
“Constitutional Innocence” |
1999 |
Honorable Mention |
Owen D. Jones |
Arizona State University |
“Sex, Culture and the Biology of Rape” |
1999 |
Honorable Mention |
Maureen Ryan |
University of Wyoming |
“Fair Use and Academic Expressions: Rhetoric, Reality and Restriction on Academic Freedom” |
1999 |
Honorable Mention |
Pauline Kim |
Washington University |
“Norms, Learning and the Law: Exploring the Influences on Workers’ Legal Knowledge” |
1998 |
Winner |
Gabriel Jackson Chin |
Western New England |
“Segregation’s Last Stronghold: Race Discrimination and the Constitutional Law of Immigration” |
1998 |
Honorable Mention |
Darryl K. Brown |
University of Dayton |
“Plain Meaning, Practical Reasoning, and Culpability: Toward a Theory of Jury Interpretation of Criminal Statutes” |
1998 |
Honorable Mention |
Amy Chua |
Duke University |
“Markets, Democracy, and Ethnicity: A New Paradigm for Law and Development” |
1997 |
Winner |
Bradley C. Bobertz |
University of Nebraska |
“The Brandeis Gambit: The Making of America’s ‘First Freedom,’ 1909-1931” |
1997 |
Honorable Mention |
David E. Bernstein |
George Mason University |
“The Law and Economics of Post-Civil War Restrictions on Interstate Migration by African-Americans” |
1997 |
Honorable Mention |
William S. Blatt |
University of Miami |
“Minority Discounts, Fair Market Value, and the Culture of Estate Taxation” |
1996 |
Winner |
Lisa Kelly |
University of West Virginia |
“Race and Place: Geographic and Transcendent Community in the Post-Shaw Era” |
1996 |
Honorable Mention |
Davison M. Douglas |
College of William and Mary |
“The Limits of Law in Accomplishing Racial Change: School Segregation in the Pre-Brown North” |
1996 |
Honorable Mention |
Gregory S. Sergienko |
University of Richmond |
“‘A Body of Sound Practical Common Sense’: Law Reform through Lay Judges and the Transformation of American Law” |
1996 |
Honorable Mention |
Ann Southworth |
Case Western Reserve University |
“Lawyer-Client Decisionmaking in Civil Rights and Poverty Practice: An Empirical Study of Lawyers’ Norms” |
1995 |
Winner |
Bradley C. Bobertz |
University of Nebraska |
“Legitimizing Pollution Through Pollution Control Laws: Reflections on Scapegoating Theory” |
1995 |
Honorable Mention |
Chris Eisgruber |
New York University |
“Remembering the Fourteenth Amendment” |
1994 |
Winner |
Anita Bernstein |
University of Chicago-Kent |
“Law, Culture, and Harrassment” |
1994 |
Honorable Mention |
Steven J. Heyman |
University of Chicago-Kent |
“Foundations of the Duty to Rescue” |
1993 |
Winner |
Rebecca L. Brown |
Vanderbilt University |
“Tradition and Insight” |
1993 |
Honorable Mention |
Jamin Ben Raskin |
American University |
“Legal Aliens, Local Citizens: The Historical, Constitutional and Theoretical Meanings of Alien Suffrage” |
1992 |
Winner |
Stephanie A. Levin |
Western New England College |
“Grassroots Voices: Local Action and National Military Policy” |
1991 |
Winner |
Cynthia Grant Bowman |
Northwestern University |
“‘We Don’t Want Anybody Anybody Sent’: The Death of Patronage Hiring in Chicago” |
1991 |
Honorable Mention |
David L. Faigman |
University of California, Hastings |
“Normative Constitutional Factfinding” |
1990 |
Winner |
Kenneth Dau-Schmidt |
University of Cincinnati |
“An Economic Analysis of the Criminal Law as a Preference-Shaping Policy” |
1990 |
Honorable Mention |
Stephen M. Griffin |
Tulane University |
“Constitutionalism in the United States: From Theory to Politics” |
1989 |
Winner |
John J. Donohue III |
Northwestern University |
“Diverting the Coasean River: Incentive Schemes to Reduce Unemployment Spells” |
1989 |
Honorable Mention |
Judith McMorrow |
Washington and Lee University |
“Who Owns Rights: Waiving and Settling Private Rights of Action” |
1988 |
Winner |
Clark Cunningham |
University of Michigan |
“A Linguistic Analysis of the Meanings of ‘Search’ in the Fourth Amendment: A Search for Common Sense” |
1986 |
Winner |
Stephen L. Pepper |
University of Denver |
“The Lawyer’s Amoral Ethical Role: A Defense, A Problem, and Some Possibilities” |