Civil Gideon Essay Contest Honors Ken Shear
In honor of the retirement of Kenneth Shear, who served as executive director of the Philadelphia Bar Association for 37 years, the "Kenneth Shear Civil Gideon Legal Justice Essay Competition and Scholarship Fund" has been established by the Association and the Philadelphia Bar Foundation to honor Shear's contributions to the Philadelphia legal community.
To raise an endowment to support the Essay Competition and Scholarship Fund, Immediate-Past Chancellor Kathleen D. Wilkinson and Bar Foundation President Deborah Gross are donating seed money to begin the funding of the Essay Competition and the Scholarship Fund in order to award at least one scholarship in 2014. The announcement of the scholarship was made by Wilkinson and Gross at the December Board of Governors meeting.
The purpose of the Essay Competition is to award a scholarship of $1,500 annually to a second- or third-year law student from the Philadelphia area law schools who writes the best short essay on the subject of Civil Gideon. The student must be willing to serve as an intern for 40 hours, pro bono, to assist the Philadelphia Bar Association and Philadelphia Bar Foundation with its endeavors through the Philadelphia Bar Association Civil Gideon Task Force, the statewide Access to Civil Justice Coalition and/or future statewide Access to Civil Justice Commission and/or will serve on another pro bono project of the Philadelphia Bar Association and Philadelphia Bar Foundation, which project is dedicated toward equal justice for all and fulfills the purposes of advancing civil Gideon, public education in the Philadelphia School District, and/or service to the poor.
The essay must be no longer than 10 pages or 2,500 words, whichever is shorter. The 2,500-word limitation refers to the text of the submission; footnotes may be a maximum of 1,000 words (in addition to the 2,500 word maximum for text). Endnotes are not permitted.
The essay must be in seminar paper or law journal article format only; submissions in the form of a memorandum, brief, judicial opinion or other type of legal document are not acceptable. The essay may not be previously published or currently accepted for publication in any publication other than in connection with this competition. The complete rules are available at
philadelphiabar.org.
All contributions to the Fund should be in the name of the Philadelphia Bar Foundation with an indication in the memo field that the donation is for the purposes of the "Kenneth Shear Civil Gideon Legal Justice Essay Competition and Scholarship Fund." Please mail your check to Jessica Hilburn-Holmes, Philadelphia Bar Foundation, 1101 Market St., 11th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107.