News Release
Contact:
Jim Greif
[email protected]
(202) 296-1593

Washington, DC (November 22, 2022) – The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) has announced the winner of the 2023 AALS Scholarly Papers Competition for law school faculty members in the field for five years or fewer.

The competition’s selection committee recognized the following outstanding paper:

• Nicole Summers, Associate Professor, Georgetown University Law Center, “Civil Probation.”  

In “Civil Probation,” Summers investigates the outcomes of eviction settlements. Based on her empirical findings, she advances a novel theory of “civil probation” within the eviction legal system. The article will be published in an upcoming issue of Stanford Law Review. 

“I am incredibly honored to receive this award recognizing my work studying eviction court outcomes,” Summers said. “With eviction complaints comprising nearly a quarter of all civil filings, it’s crucial we develop policies that address the myriad ways tenants are systemically disadvantaged in the cases and ultimately harmed. I am very grateful to my mentors and colleagues for encouraging and supporting me in this project.” 

The selection committee also recognized the following paper as honorable mention:

• Jonathan Choi, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota Law School, “Computational Corpus Linguistics” 

The AALS Committee to Review Scholarly Papers for the 2023 Annual Meeting included distinguished legal scholars from around the country:

• Martin H. Belsky, University of Akron School of Law
• Talia Gillis, Columbia Law School
• Andrew Guzman, University of Southern California, Gould School of Law
• Sarah B. Lawsky, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law 
• Troy A. Mckenzie, New York University School of Law 
• Sidney D. Watson, Saint Louis University School of Law 

The competition is now in its 37^th year and the awards will be presented during a ceremony at the AALS Annual Meeting on January 5, 2023.

About AALS
The Association of American Law Schools (AALS), founded in 1900, is a nonprofit association of 176 member and 19 fee-paid law schools. Its members enroll most of the nation’s law students and produce the majority of the country’s lawyers and judges, as well as many of its lawmakers. The mission of AALS is to uphold and advance excellence in legal education. In support of this mission, AALS promotes the core values of excellence in teaching and scholarship, academic freedom, and diversity, including diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints, while seeking to improve the legal profession, to foster justice, and to serve its many communities—local, national and international.