2015 Lincoln Award Legal Writing Contest winners

Jason Hortenstine of Mattoon, an associate at Heller, Holmes & Associates, is the first place winner in the ISBA’s 2015 Lincoln Award Legal Writing Contest. Jason received a cash award of $2,000, and his winning article, “A Practitioner’s Guide to the Loss of Chance Doctrine in Illinois,” will appear in the February Illinois Bar Journal. The contest is sponsored by the Young Lawyers Division and open to YLD members.

Second place winner is Sean Brown, Bridgeview, a Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney. He wrote “Post-Kladis Issues: The Evolving Illinois Discovery Laws.” Third place goes to John Painter, an associate at Ashman Law Offices, LLC in Chicago, for “Pusher Man: Lawyers Push the Legal and Ethical Limits Representing Marijuana Businesses.” The second place winner got a $1,000 cash prize and the third place winner received $500.

Thirty-four manuscripts were submitted in the 2015 contest. The judges were Illinois Appellate Court Justice Michael J. Burke of Elmhurst; Hon. Zina Cruse, Belleville, a circuit judge in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit Court; Deborah A. Benzing, of the law firm Meachum, Starck, Boyle and Trafman in Chicago; Elizabeth Felt Wakeman, a partner in Botto Gilbert Gehris Lancaster, PC in Crystal Lake; and Joseph P. Chamley, a partner in Evans, Froehlich, Beth & Chamley in Champaign.

Watch for information this spring about next year’s contest.