Hartrick Scholar Writing Competition Winner Announced

The Institute for Energy Law (IEL) launched its first Hartrick Writing Prize competition for law students at the end of 2012.  49 entries were received by the judging committee, and after three rounds of judging, the IEL is pleased to announce that the winner of the competition, and the IEL’s first Hartrick Scholar, will be Zeb Zankel, a 2014 JD candidate at the Santa Clara University School of Law in Santa Clara, California, for his paper entitled Dissonance in the California Wholesale Electricity Market.

As well as a cash prize of $2,500, Zeb will receive expenses paid trips to Houston for the IEL’s 64th Annual Oil and Gas Law Conference on February 21 and 22, and to Tulsa for the IEL’s first Hartrick Symposium: Career Paths for Young Attorneys in the Energy Sector on March 1 and 2.

Five other papers made the final shortlist of six, and were commended by the judges:

Jacob P. Byl, Vanderbilt University Law School, for Conserving a Place for Renewable Power

Zack Callarman, Texas Wesleyan School of Law, for Seven Thousand Feet Under: Does Drilling Disturb the Dead? Or Does Drilling Underneath The Dead Disturb the Living? An Analysis of Various Laws Concerning Drilling to Extract Oil and Gas Underneath Cemeteries

Richard Hepp, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, for Privacy and the Smart Grid: Why Consumers would be Better Protected if States Lead the Charge in Regulating the Next Energy Revolution

Daniel K. Johnson, University of Virginia School of Law, for Between a Rock and a Radioactive Place: Legal Challenges, Complications, and Solutions for the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository

Paul Glenn (Trey) Thomas, University of Houston Law Center, for When What’s Pumped Up Goes Back Down: Disposing of Produced Water in the Wake of FPL Farming