Second-year law student David Connally has been named winner of the UW Law School's Legal Research & Writing Best Brief Award for 2004 after a selection process that included review of the submitted briefs by leading Wisconsin practitioners and UW law professors. Connally's work was selected as the most outstanding of twenty-one submitted briefs.

Connally received his award formally on February 2, 2005, from Dean Kenneth B. Davis, Jr. and Professor Susan Steingass, Director of the Communication and Advocacy Program. Steingass commented, "Receiving the Best Brief Award for the 1L class of 2004 is a significant achievement. Competition with an entire law school class of 270 excellent students is, in itself, daunting. The additional evaluation by leading members of the bar and the Law School faculty augments this achievement."

For Connally, the process began when his Legal Writing instructor, attorney Scott Petersen, announced in the beginning of the spring 2004 semester that the final project, a trial-level brief, could be entered in competition for the award. At the end of the semester, each instructor chose the best brief from his/her section, and all briefs were given for judging to three Wisconsin attorneys: Susan Collins (Boardman Suhr Curry & Field), Rhonda Lanford (Habush, Habush & Rottier), and Barbara Neider (Stafford Rosenbaum).

After the three attorneys each ranked the briefs from 1 to 21, the papers came back to the Law School, where the top five briefs were submitted to a faculty group led by Professors Arthur McEvoy and David Schwartz, who selected Connally's work as the winner. His winning brief deals with a personal injury (torts) case involving the doctrine of recreational immunity.

Writers of the top five briefs, all named finalists in the competition, were Robyn Arnold, Amy Bradshaw, Joyce Chang, and Chris Kalafut, in addition to Connally.

Connally comments, "Grades in law school can feel very arbitrary, so it's meaningful to have something I put a lot of effort into come back and reward me. Knowing that my work had gone out into the legal community and had been seen by so many eyes -- so many good eyes: that was the reward for me."

This is the second year that the Best Brief Award has been conferred. The winner for 2003 was Laura Schulteis; finalists were Nathan Kipp, Tony McGrath, Daniel O'Callaghan, and David Rosenberg.

Submitted by on February 4, 2005

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