TYLA Project

The Ultimate Writer Regional Competition
By: Lauren Renee Sepulveda

The Texas Young Lawyers Association’s Competitions Committee co-sponsored the inaugural Ultimate Writer Regional Legal Writing Competition in conjunction with Baylor Law School this fall. The Ultimate Writer competition is a unique, practice-oriented contest featuring a legal writing problem like one a young lawyer may face early in their career.

All Texas law schools (apart from the co-host, Baylor) were invited to compete and all entrants came from some of the best legal writing programs in the state. Participating law schools include the University of Texas School of Law, Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law, the University of Houston Law Center, Texas Tech University School of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston, and the UNT Dallas College of Law.

The competition kicked off in October 2017. Each participating law school submitted the problem to its own student participants. All participating law schools had to submit their top three student entries by November 3, 2017, to the competition. Judges from TYLA’s Competitions Committee and Baylor Law’s legal writing faculty judged the top 20 entries received from the participating law schools. The TYLA judges panel blindly reviewed all 20 entries and selected the top 10, then forwarded those to the Baylor Law faculty for the final round of judging. The judges were Lauren Sepulveda, Jonathan Zendeh Del, and Victor Flores.

The winners were announced on November 13, 2017. William Peterson (Texas Tech), Robert Ehrlich (Texas Tech), Anna Eady (South Texas), Megan Cloud (Texas A&M) and Taryn Ourso (UNT Dallas) all received honorable mention. Tyler Hubert (University of Houston) placed third and Alex Chern (University of Texas) placed second. The winner of first place, and the title of 2017 Texas Regional Legal Writing Ultimate Writer, was Michael Davis of the University of Texas School of Law.

The TYLA Competitions Committee was honored to co-host this event with Baylor Law School and looks forward to continued collaboration in years to come.

Lauren Sepulveda is a felony prosecutor with the Hidalgo County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.