Anne Knight is 2008 Winner of Burton Award for Legal Achievement!

Anne Knight

For the second time in the three years that TJSL has competed, a TJSL student has won the highly prestigious Burton Award for Legal Achievement. Anne Knight is one of 15 student authors selected for the annual award from the many entries received from the nation's law schools and she represents the only California law school this year to have a Burton Award winner. What makes today's announcement even more of an honor is that TJSL is the only law school in San Diego that has ever fielded a Burton Award winner. In fact, the only other laws schools in California that previously have had a Burton Award winner are Stanford, Chapman and Golden Gate.

The Burton Award for Legal Achievement was founded in 1999 to recognize effective legal writing and is considered one of the most coveted award programs in law. The program operates in association with the Library of Congress and honors not only law students, but also partners in law firms who use "plain, clear and concise language in their legal writings and avoid archaic, stitled legalese."

Knight was selected on the basis of her Note published in the latest issue of Thomas Jefferson Law Review, Vol. 30, No. 1, p. 249 (Fall 2007).

According to Professor Bryan Wildenthal, "Ms. Knight's Law Review Note provides a thoughtful and sophisticated analysis of the free speech and anti-discrimination issues involved in recognition of campus student organizations whose philosophies involve some type of disapproval or exclusion relating to sexual orientation. Beyond that, her Note points out some pragmatic and workable solutions to this issue, which is currently the subject of several lawsuits and has vexed schools and universities around the country."

Knight and the other 2008 Burton Award winners will be honored on June 16th at a formal black-tie event at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Gerald Breyer will be the guest speaker and Bill Press, television and radio political host and author, will be the master of ceremonies. There Knight will be personally recognized and presented with an engraved crystal award.

In 2006, Jennifer Siverts ('06) was the first TJSL student to win a Burton Award. She, too, was honored at a gala event at the Library of Congress, which Dean Rudy Hasl also attended.

For more information about the Burton Awards, visit www.burtonawards.com.

Congratulations Anne for this significant achievement!