The Harriet E. Miers Writing Competition Award, established in 2018, is named in honor of a lawyer who served as White House Counsel to George W. Bush. Harriet Miers is the first woman to have headed the State Bar of Texas.
Each year, the section invites Texas law school students to write essays for the competition. The topic is to identify and analyze a legal challenge for women in Texas and/or in the United States, based on recent news reports. Students are asked to imagine that they have been invited to publish an op-ed in a newspaper read by the general public.
- What is the challenge? How are women harmed?
- What is the relevant law(s)?
- How should the challenge be addressed?
The section designed the competition with the following goals:
- to help participating Texas law-school students prepare to tackle legal and societal challenges after graduation and strengthen their written advocacy skills;
- to increase awareness of and involvement with the Section; and
- to further the Section’s mission.