Africa Essay Prize

Africa is an increasingly important part of Slaughter and May’s practice. Many of the firm’s clients have operations in African jurisdictions and it is frequently necessary for the firm to find solutions to challenging legal issues in Africa, in collaboration with outstanding local law firms across the continent. Slaughter and May also provides advice to various African governments.

In light of this, the Slaughter and May Africa Essay Prize is intended to stimulate debate among university students around the important issues to which African commerce and law give rise.

The Slaughter and May Essay Prize joins the firm’s other Africa initiatives, including various training and secondment programmes. For more information, please see the Slaughter and May Africa site and the Trainee Recruitment site.

The rules of the competition are set out below.

To enter, you must be enrolled as a current student at an educational institution on the deadline for submission of entries. Both full-time and part-time, law and non-law, undergraduate and post-graduate students (including Graduate Diploma in Law and Legal Practice Course students) are eligible to enter.

Applicants are asked to submit a response to one of the following two questions:

• What lessons can African nations learn from the COVID-19 pandemic?

         OR

• If you were tasked with drafting mining legislation for an African country of your choice, what are the key laws you would pass and why?

The word limit for your essay is 1,000 words.

Entries should display:

• Familiarity with and interest in African commerce and law.
• Imagination and originality in approach
• Concision, in order to maximise the use of the available word limit.
• Close attention to detail and an evidence-based approach.

You are free to focus on particular case studies in your essay.

A panel of Slaughter and May partners and guests will judge the competition. The winners will receive the following prizes:

FIRST PRIZE

• Cash prize of £1,000
• One hour one-to-one coaching with a Learning & Development specialist
• (in person or virtual) Coffee with members of the Africa Practice Group
• CV review
• Slaughter and May goody bag

SECOND PRIZE

• Cash prize of £500
• (in person or virtual) Coffee with members of the Africa Practice Group
• Slaughter and May goody bag

THIRD PRIZE

• Cash prize of £250
• Slaughter and May goody bag

*subject to eligibility T&C's

Submissions are now closed.

Slaughter and May has the right to publish or reproduce at any time all or part of any essay entered. Slaughter and May reserve the right to delete or omit from any published article anything that in their absolute discretion should not be published on editorial or legal grounds.

Please note the footnotes are not included in the 1,000 word essay.

The essay must be the sole creation and original work of the entrant.

Only one entry per person is allowed.