Peter Birks Prizes for Outstanding Legal Scholarship
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Each year the Society offers two prizes for outstanding published books by scholars in their early careers. The prizes will be presented at the annual dinner of the Society at the Annual Conference. The value of the prizes will be £1,000 for the first prize and £300 for the second prize. The judges may decide to award one prize or not to award a prize, or may decide to divide the whole sum or either prize between two winners. This year the judges will be the Vice-President of the Society, the Vice-President Elect and the Immediate Past President. They will be entitled to take advice from such professorial members of the Society as they see fit.
THE RULES
(1) EVIDENCE OF OUTSTANDING LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP
The prizes are offered only for published books. For the avoidance of doubt, this means authored or co-authored books, not edited books, e.g. of contributed essays.
(2) ELIGIBLE AUTHORS
The prizes are open to all members of the Society who:
(i) on the closing date for nominations EITHER have been in full-time academic employment for not more than 15 years (or its equivalent on a part-time basis) by that date OR are still under the age of 40; and
(ii) were not professors when the book in question was published but were then members of the Society.
(3) ELIGIBLE BOOKS
Books by eligible authors will be considered provided that:
(i) they are or have been published by the closing date for nominations; and
(ii) they have been published within the 24 months preceding that date; and
(iii) they have not been nominated in an earlier SPTL or SLS prize competition.
(4) NOMINATORS
Nominations must be made by either a head of department or any two members of the Society.
(5) CONTENT OF NOMINATIONS
The nomination must include:
(i) a brief statement of the reasons why the book is being nominated;
(ii) a statement of the month and year in which the book was published;
(iii) a statement showing that the author is a qualified member of the Society within (2) above and has consented to the nomination; and
(iv) three copies of the book (which will not subsequently be returned).
(6) CLOSING DATE
The nomination (as detailed in (5) above) must reach the Administrative Secretary no later than 31 May 2009.