LIV Emerging Lawyers Writing Competition closes 17 August

Entries close at 11.59pm on Monday 17 August. There are roughly two weeks left to write something the profession will actually read.

The Profession Press · Editorial

LIV Emerging Lawyers Writing Competition closes 17 August

Entries to the Law Institute of Victoria's Emerging Lawyers Writing Competition opened at 9am on Monday 22 June 2026 and close at 11.59pm on Monday 17 August 2026.

The competition is one of a small number of mechanisms by which a practitioner early in a career can put an argument in front of the profession without an invitation, a masthead or a partner willing to co-author. Last year's LIV Young Lawyers competition was won by Courtney Bristow writing on the need for anti-SLAPP reform in Australia, with Arieh Herszberg as runner-up. Note that the LIV runs two distinct competitions; check which one you are entering.

Why bother

Published legal writing does something a CV cannot. It demonstrates how you think, at length, on a subject you chose. Every hiring decision, silk application, tribunal appointment and speaking invitation eventually rests on someone forming a view about a practitioner's judgement, and most of the profession has no way of exhibiting judgement except through the matters they happen to be briefed in.

The subject matters less than the argument. A well-constructed piece on an unglamorous procedural problem will outperform a broad survey of an important field, because the first requires a position and the second permits you to avoid taking one.

Details

Entries opened: 9am, Monday 22 June 2026
Entries close: 11.59pm, Monday 17 August 2026
Host: Law Institute of Victoria
Eligibility and word limits: Set out on the LIV competition page

Two weeks is enough time. It is not enough time to research a topic from nothing, so write about the problem you have already been complaining about.

On judging: competitions of this kind reward clarity of argument over breadth of research, and a piece that stakes out a position someone could reasonably dispute will always outperform a careful survey that offends nobody. Read last year's winning entries before you start — not to imitate them, but to calibrate what length and register the judges have previously rewarded.