Matsui Writing Competition

The Robert T. Matsui Annual Writing Competition was established by AEF in 2005 to honor the late Congressman Robert T. Matsui and his many accomplishments. Through this writing competition, AEF seeks to encourage legal scholarship on issues of importance to the Asian Pacific American legal community and, more generally, the publication of law review articles on topics of relevance to racial and ethnic minorities and the law.

The competition is open to all law students nationwide in the United States and, in future years, may be expanded to include attorneys as well.  Submissions for the 2010 competition must be received by June 1, 2010, and the winner will be announced by August 1, 2010.  Submissions must be original works and not previously published. The winner of the 2010 competition will receive a monetary award of fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500), and the winning entry will be published by the Asian Pacific American Law Journal (APALJ), at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law subject to the journal’s standard editorial process and copyright policy.  APALJ’s editing process may require additional substantive edits prior to publication.

A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and the Hastings College of the Law, Congressman Matsui was first elected to the United States Congress in 1978 from Sacramento, California.  He won re-election to Congress 13 times.  Congressman Matsui was a strong supporter of AEF, serving as the keynote speaker for the Annual Benefit Dinner in 1997 and again in 2003.

A number of prominent scholars, practitioners, and jurists nationwide have agreed to serve on the competition’s Board of Advisors, including Justice Ming W. Chin of the Supreme Court of California; Judge Ronald S.W. Lew of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California; James C. Ho, Solicitor General of Texas and co-founder of the AEF Robert T. Matsui Annual Writing Competition; Paul M. Igasaki, former Vice-Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Debra Wong Yang, former U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, who keynoted the 2005 Annual Benefit Dinner; Georgetown Law Professor and former Assistant U.S. Attorney General Viet D. Dinh; Vincent A. Eng, Deputy Director of the Asian American Justice Center and adjunct law professor at American University, Washington College of Law; UCLA Law Professor Jerry Kang; Jennifer Choe Groves, Director of Intellectual Property and Innovation at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and co-founder of the AEF Robert T. Matsui Annual Writing Competition; Sujit M. Raman, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland and past president of AEF; and Michael P. Chu and John C. Yang, past presidents of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.

For more information about the competition and the 2010 competition application, please click here.  For more information about the 2009 winner, please click here.

AEF Matsui Board of Advisors