Professor Julie A. Oseid to Receive American Inns of Court’s Warren E. Burger Prize

ALEXANDRIA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Professor Julie Oseid from the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has been selected by a distinguished panel of academics to receive the 2007 Warren E. Burger Writing Competition Prize. The award will be presented at the American Inns of Court’s Celebration of Excellence, hosted by Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., at the United States Supreme Court, on October 20, 2007.

“When Big Bother is Watching (Out for) You: Mentoring Lawyers, Choosing a Mentor, and Sharing Ten Virtues from My Mentor”

The Warren E. Burger Writing Anonymous Competition is designed to encourage outstanding scholarship that “promotes the ideals of excellence, civility, ethics and professionalism within the legal profession,” the core mission of the American Inns of Court. The competition is open to original, unpublished essays of 10,000 to 25,000 words. In addition to a cash prize, the author will have the winning essay published in the South Carolina Law Review.

The judges for the competition are Professor Stephen Gillers, Chair, Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law; Professor Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., Trustee Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School; Professor Nancy J. Moore, Boston University School of Law; and, Professor Robert M. Wilcox, Director of the Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough Center on Professionalism at the University of South Carolina School of Law.

Oseid graduated summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, before earning her J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School. She was Order of the Coif and Notes and Comments Editor for the Minnesota Law Review. After clerking for The Honorable John T. Noonan, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, she joined the firm of Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly in Minneapolis where she litigated for four years. For the next thirteen years, she worked at home, raising her three children with husband Dr. Jeff Oseid, a pediatrician. She then joined the faculty at St. Thomas teaching lawyering skills.

Oseid’s winning essay, entitled “When Big Bother is Watching (Out for) You: Mentoring Lawyers, Choosing a Mentor, and Sharing Ten Virtues from My Mentor,” examines the importance of mentoring in the legal profession. Professor Oseid shares her mentor’s best advice in the form of ten virtues he consistently emphasized: diligence, initiative, efficiency, reflection, enjoyment, simplicity, civility, honesty, sharing, and equality.

Interestingly, one of her mentors she credits is her brother, Professor Stephen Easton from the University of Missouri School of Law. Not only did they share many similar academic honors and follow similar career paths, they now share something even rarer: Professor Stephen Easton was the winner of the first American Inns of Court Warren E. Burger Prize.

The American Inns of Court Foundation is America’s oldest, largest and fastest growing legal mentoring organization. More information may be found at www.innsofcourt.org.