Details for the Rhode Prize

Definition of ‘legal ethics’: 

For the purposes of this prize legal ethics is defined broadly in line with the scope and mission of the flagship journal of IAOLE, Legal Ethics, which is an international and interdisciplinary journal devoted to the field of legal ethics. The journal provides an intellectual meeting ground for academic lawyers, practitioners and policy-makers to debate developments shaping the ethics of law and its practice at the micro and macro levels. It defines legal ethics broadly enough to encompass empirical research on the ethics and conduct of the legal professions and judiciary, studies of legal ethics education and moral development, ethics development in contemporary professional practice, the ethical responsibilities of law schools, professional bodies and government, and jurisprudential or wider philosophical reflections on law as an ethical system and on the moral obligations of individual lawyers. 

Definition of ‘early career scholar’: 

For the purposes of this prize, ‘early career scholars’ include those who meet any one of the following 3 criteria: 

1. up to 5 years post-PhD; 
2. those with normally no more than 5 years continuing employment in an academic teaching and/or research position, or 
3. those who can make a case that they fit in the early career category for other reasons. 

Applications and submissions: 

Applications may be made by either the author themselves or by another person on their behalf. The author’s permission can be evidenced by an email from the author confirming consent to the submission at the time of submission or upon request from the Prize Committee afterwards. 

The prize will be judged on the basis of the written paper alone. No narrative is required with the submission of the article. 

Co-authorship: 

In the case of co-authorship, the early career scholar applicant must be responsible for 50% of more of the article or chapter, which should be declared upon submitting the paper for consideration for the prize. 

Amount of expenses to be refunded: 

IAOLE will refund waived registration fee, reimbursement of coach (i.e. economy) airfare, and hotel for four nights to a maximum of USD4000. Taxis, meals and other incidental expenses are excluded. 

Judging process and criteria: 

The prize will be judged by the Rhode Prize Subcommittee of IAOLE. 

(For the 2024 ILEC Conference, this Committee is chaired by Professor Christine Parker, Melbourne Law School and consisting of at least two other members of the IAOLE Board.  This Subcommittee will be guided by the following criteria: 

• How significant is the subject of the work? 
• How original is the work – to what extent does it advance existing knowledge? 
• Does the work do more than synthesise previous scholarship? 
• Does the work clearly develop a central argument and support this with persuasive evidence? 
• Is the research methodology adopted suitable and sufficient? 
• Is the work well organised and clearly expressed? 
• Does the work communicate its central argument effectively to a non-specialist, as well as a specialist readership?