The competition, conducted with generous support from BSA | The Software Alliance, challenged students to explore the emerging and sustained challenges to legal and political structures created by online platforms, digital services, and other emerging technologies.

A panel of judges—comprising representatives from academia, civil society, and industry—selected the three winners in a fully-blind judging process from the more than forty submissions to the competition.

The winners are:

1st Place: Matthew Leiwant, Georgetown University. Locked Out: How Algorithmic Tenant Screening Exacerbates the Eviction Crisis in the United States

2nd Place: Dana Holmstrand, Georgetown University. A Haunted (Smart) House: Smart Home Devices as Tools of Harassment and Abuse

3rd Place: Rachel Anderson, University of Virginia. Geo-Targeting Jurisdiction: Online Ads and the Economics of Specific Jurisdiction

Each winning paper is awarded a cash prize: $4,000 for first place, $2,000 for second place, and $1,000 for third place. In addition to cash prizes, each of the selected papers will be eligible to be published as student notes in the Georgetown Law Technology Review.

Congratulations to our winning authors, and thank you to everyone who submitted excellent papers for this competition!

Thank you, also, to our judges for the 2021 Writing Competition:

• April Doss, Executive Director, Institute for Technology Law & Policy

• Kate Goodloe, Senior Director, Policy, BSA | The Software Alliance

• Panya Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, Georgetown Law Technology Review

• Paul Alan Levy, Attorney, Public Citizen Litigation Group

• Terrell McSweeny, Partner, Covington & Burling LLP

• Professor Erin Carroll, Georgetown Law

• Professor Julie Cohen, Georgetown Law

• Professor Paul Ohm, Georgetown Law