The Annual Trainees Legal Medicine Writing Competition

The Annual Trainees Legal Medicine Competition is an competition sponsored by the American College of Legal Medicine (ACLM) that provides an opportunity for any college student, post-doctoral attorney, or health professional enrolled in full-time studies in the United States or Canada to present their research on topics related to legal medicine.

The coveted Orr Award is awarded to the author of the outstanding original postdoctoral paper on legal medicine.

The prestigious Hirsh Award is awarded to the author of the outstanding original student paper on legal medicine.

Eligible authors include:

• Those that are enrolled at an accredited college or postgraduate school in the United States or Canada; and
• Those that have previously received a doctoral degree (MD, DO, DDS, DMD, DPM, DVM, JD, PhD, PharmD, etc.) or the equivalent from an accredited institution and are currently enrolled in a post-doctoral program in the United States or Canada.

Entries meeting the following criteria:

• Each entry must be submitted by the deadline in the requested format to the designated email address.
• Submissions may address any aspect of legal medicine, including healthcare law, medical licensure, regulation of the profession, business aspects of medical practice, liability of physicians, hospitals, and managed care organizations, ethics, biopharmaceutical and medical device regulation, public health law, legal issues in physician-patient relationships, food and drug law, regulation of clinical research, forensic science, or the history of legal medicine.
• Submissions must be the entirely original work of the individual submitting author.
• Submissions may have been used for academic credit but must not have been submitted for publication.
• The author may not have a financial interest directly or indirectly in the material presented

1. There is no word count limit, but submissions under 25,000 words, including footnotes, are preferred.
2. The first page is the cover page with the author’s name and contact information and a telephone number, email address and the name of the author’s school. It should have the title “2026 Post-Doctoral Writing Competition” and the final word count.
3. If an author wishes to acknowledge an individual or institution, then this can be done on the cover page.
4. At the top of page # 2 and onwards the author must place the title of the paper in all capitals.
5. The author may not have a financial interest directly or indirectly in the material presented and must disclose any other financial conflicts on the last page of the document.
6. All papers must be submitted in MS Word or Google Doc format using 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, and with one-inch margins. All citations must be footers in 10-point Times New Roman font and single-spaced. All pages must be numbered.

Deadline: Sunday, January 28, 2027, at 11:59 pm pacific

Submit by email: Papers must be sent by email to info@aclm.org.

The ACLM 2027 Annual Conference is scheduled to take place at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, from February 25-28, 2027.

The Orr Award presentation will take place on February 26, 2027.

The Hirsh Award presentation will take place on February 27, 2027.

• The writer of the winning paper will be presented the Orr Award and will receive $1,000.00, round trip economy airfare to Phoenix, one-night hotel accommodations during the conference, and conference registration to attend the ACLM 2026 Annual Conference where they will have an opportunity to present the paper, receive the award, and meet with experts in the field of legal medicine. The winning paper will be published in The Journal of Legal Medicine, and all other papers entered for the Orr Award will receive consideration for publication in The Journal of Legal Medicine.

  The second-place winner will receive $500.00.

  The third-place winner will receive $250.00.

  The top three winners will receive complimentary one-year membership in the American College of Legal Medicine.

All submitted papers preferably must not be submitted for publication in a journal or law review until they are released back to the author. The release of papers will be completed by email from the ACLM to the author by January 31, 2026.

ACLM 2026 Orr Post Doc Writing Competition

Please direct all questions to pasha.amirala@mayo.edu