The AIJA Best International Future Lawyer of the year is changing for 2017, with some new rules and a specific theme. Unlike last year when young lawyers could submit any essay on any subject, this time the essay must be written specifically to a standardised format, and on the topic: “The impact of technology on the law and/or on the legal profession”.
Maximiliano D’Auro, Co-Chair of AIJA’s Membership Forum, explains: “The main change is that this year we expect law students to produce papers that are tailor-made for this award’s theme. Last year was the first edition of the award, so we wanted to facilitate the submissions of essays by giving a lot of flexibility to choose the topic and the length of the essays. We received more essays than expected, but with a great disparity of subject matters and length. This year, we want to encourage law students to write essays specifically for this purpose, so we have given more time for preparation, shorten the essays and chosen a unique (albeit broad) theme.”
The theme itself was chosen for being, “one of the hottest topics in the legal world today,” said D’Auro. “Technology and artificial intelligence have a huge impact on both the underlying legal matters (such as contract law, data protection law, e-commerce, conflict of laws, etc.) and also in the legal profession. The way we practice law nowadays might be on the verge of a revolution. Even though there is a lot of discussion going on, we lawyers are far from having analysed all the ramifications of this phenomenon. That is why technology and AI will be the general theme governing the entire scientific programme of our next Congress in Tokyo.”
The winner of the Best International Future Lawyer Award will be invited to attend, free of charge, the 2017 International Young Lawyers’ Congress taking in Tokyo, on 28th August – 1st September, where they will be asked to present a summary of their paper.
Last year’s winner, Kuwait’s Sharefah A. Almuhana, commented that holding the AIJA lawyer of the year award “means a lot for me: it means that my research is recognized internationally.”
All law students aged 45 and under who are still enrolled at any university worldwide at the time their paper is submitted, are eligible to enter. The application period starts on 1st February 2017 and the deadline is 1st May. Essays will also be anonymised before sending to the judges, to avoid any potential bias.
For further details on the essay format and how to enter, go to awards.aija.org.