The Herman and Edith Wildman Social Justice Law Writing Award

The Herman and Edith Wildman Social Justice Law Writing Award will be given to the best student essay (or essays) on a Public Interest and Social Justice Law topic. Students are encouraged to submit papers written for a class, law review, or other purpose any time between spring semester of the preceding year and spring semester of the current year.

The Herman and Edith Wildman Social Justice Law Writing Award honors the memory of Herman Wildman, 1912-2002, who practiced law in New York and California, and the memory of Edith Wildman, 1921-2015, a teacher and librarian. The winner or winners will receive an honorarium and a certificate.

Papers will be judged by faculty members who did not supervise the writing project.

The application deadline is noon on Friday, April 12, 2024 @ Noon. Please submit your paper to Kerrie Bindi, at kbindi@scu.edu. The paper must be submitted in Word and must be accompanied by a cover sheet giving your name and contact information (phone and email); the title of your paper; the name of the course for which you wrote the paper; if any, and the name of the writing supervisor or course instructor, if any. Please direct any questions to Kerrie Bindi, at kbindi@scu.edu.

Herman Wildman, 1912-2002, was born in New York City, attended City College of New York, and graduated from St. John’s University School of Law. He was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army after serving in World War II with the 88th Infantry “Blue-Devil” Division. As a member of the New York bar, he practiced with the law offices of George J. Mintzer, which included associates Thomas J. Todarelli and Hubert T. Delaney. He became a member of the California bar in 1953, where he continued his work as a general practitioner in solo practice in Los Angeles. He was married for 55 years to Edith Wildman, and they always took great pleasure in their children and grandchildren.

Edith Wildman, 1921-2015, graduated from Brooklyn College and Teachers’ College of Columbia University. She taught elementary school and junior high in New York City. She did volunteer work for Los Angeles public schools and Jewish libraries for many years. She was an avid reader and always valued good writing.

Past Wildman Writing Award Recipients

2023 Recipients

Leah Faibisoff, The ‘Long Arm’ of State Law after Dobbs: Civil Liability for Out-of-State Physicians?

2023 Honorable Mention: 

Alexandria Morones, Preserving a Voice: Recommendations for Prioritizing Tribal Access to Radio Broadcasting.

 

2022 Recipient   

Marissa Blasing, Gender Inequities, the Covid-19 Shecession, and the Need for a Conscious Reformation

2021 Recipient

Romae-Anne Aquino, Policy Brief: The Case For Granting Legal Status To Undocumented Agricultural Workers. 

2020 Recipient

Maggie Cockayne, Foster to Adopt: Pipeline to failure and the need for concurrent planning reform

2019 Recipients

Hannah Ford-Stille, Regulated & Hydrated: A Case for Regulating Bottled Water

 

Daniel Johnston, Commodifying Division: Surrogacy & Racial Distancing

2018 Recipient

Julia Schon, Why Are California’s Prisons and Streets Filled with More Mentally Ill Than its Hospitals?

2017 Recipients

Erik Aucoin, Empathy Leads to Death: Why Empathy is an Adversary of Capital Defendants

 

Joshua Seitz, Striking a Balance: Policy Considerations for Human Germline Modification

2016 Recipient

Michael Tsivyan, ’18, Ambiguity in the Standard of Appellate Review of Fee Awards Under Public Interest Fee-Shifting Statutes

2016 Honorable Mentions

Lisa Greenburg, ’16, Behind Arizona’s Walls of Silence: The Tragic Consequences of Cloaking Lethal Injection Protocols in Secrecy

 

Keelikolani Ho, ’16, Responding to Drought: Farmers, Fields, and Water in California Today

2015 Recipient

Mallory Barr ’17, The Battle at Home: Protecting Service Members’ Rights and Interests in Family Court

2015 Honorable Mention

Adam Belsey ’16, When Innocence is Confidential: A New Exception to Attorney Client Confidentiality is Essential

2014 Recipient

Matthew Volkmann ’14, No Accident: Racial Bias in the American Tort System

2013 Recipient

Hazella Bowmani ’14, The Significance of Stereotypes in Adjudicating LGBT Asylum Claims

2012 Recipients

Susannah Ragab, Wrestling with the ROSCA-Examining the Sustainability of Community Credit Markets Through the Lens of Korean “Kye”

 

Marc Wiesner, Efficacy and United States Trafficking Victims Protection Act: The Need for Treble Damages in the Private Right of Action

2011 Recipient

Jennifer McAllister, We’re Not Taking New Patients Right Now: Lack of Access to Health Care for Transgender Patients as a Public Health Crisis

2010 Recipient

Sarah Mercer, Tongue Tied: Women at the Intersection of Language Access and Reproductive Health Care Policies

2009 Recipients

Elizabeth Coleman, Newtonian Mechanics: The Debate Over Physical Force as Applied to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) and its Implications for Domestic Violence and the Military

 

Brandon Douglass, A Case for States: Making Blanket Primaries Constitutional in the Post-Jones Era

 

2008 Recipient

Abdul Al Hamamsy, Avian Influenza Pandemic: A Comprehensive Preparedness Plan for a National Security Threat

2007 Recipient

Jennifer Alesio, Reconceptualizing Although I Do Not Hope: Evaluating Revolutionary Educational Reform in the Era of Retrenchment

2007 Honorable Mention

Olivia Serene Lee, Making the Case to Desegregate Public Schools in a Time of Resegregation: A San Franciscan Chinese American Perspective

 

2006 Recipient

Pami Vyas, Reconceptualizing Domestic Violence in India: Economic Abuse and the Need for Broad Statutory Interpretation to Promote Women’s Fundamental Rights

2006 Honorable Mention

Pamela Vartabedian, The Need to Hold Batterers Accountable: Admitting Prior Acts of Abuse in Cases of Domestic Violence

2005 Recipient

Jennifer Briggs, Protecting Pregnant Workers: Anti-Discrimination Law and Specific Rights in Europe and the United States

 

2004 Recipient

Susan Hunt, Feminism of the Future: Unmodified or Unified?

2004 Honorable Mention

Kirsten Bowman, Bridging the Gap in the Hopes of Ending Female Genital Cutting

2003 Recipients

Stephanie Grogan, Liberty v. Security: Does Security Always Win or Can They Co-Exist During Times of War?

 

Dori Lynn Yob, Mistaken Identifications Cause Wrongful Convictions: New Jersey’s Lineup Guidelines Restore Hope, But Are They Enough?

2002 Recipient

Christine Carlson, Invisible Victims: Holding the Educational System Liable for Teen Dating Violence at School