Applicants must be students enrolled at a European university currently undertaking a university law degree, whether undergraduate or postgraduate; or contenders who are within five years of being awarded a law degree at the date by which entries must be submitted and be knowledgeable in English.

The candidates must submit a unique and original paper which was not previously published and which deals with a European legal issue that could be improved. The contribution can be submitted in any of the EU official languages along with an English translation.

The submission shall contain:

1. A cover sheet with the name, telephone number, e-mail and postal address of the applicant, as well as the topic of the paper;

2. An executive summary of maximum 300 words;

3. A paper of maximum 2.500 words, containing at least the following information:

a.Introduction;

b. Identification of a problem or a possibility for improvement in the indicated field of law in Europe;

c. Analysis of one or more possible solution(s);

d. Concluding remarks

All papers submitted by candidates for the ELI Young Lawyers Award should follow the directions in this style sheet regarding structure, form, style,  reference formats and citations.

The successful candidate will be invited to present his/her paper at the 2018 ELI Annual Conference and General Assembly in Riga (Latvia).

The ELI will further cover his/her accommodation and travel expenses up to EUR 1,000. This will provide the winner with an opportunity to meet and greet some of the world’s leading law experts and exchange ideas with them.

In addition, the winning contribution will be published on the ELI website and its author will be awarded with two years of free ELI fellowship, which will allow this person to be involved in Special Interest Groups (SIGs), present project proposals and participate in the Members Consultative Committees (MCCs) of the different ELI projects.

Deadline for submissions: papers for the 2018 Award have to be submitted by 30 April 2018 to the following address: <award@europeanlawinstitute.eu> 

Further information can be found here.