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Papers are now invited for the 2012 Brooking Prize

1st Prize – A$4,000

2nd Prize – A$2,000

Student prize – A$1,000

(Commendations may also be awarded)

Please note:  submission email amended 19 December 2011.

The Society of Construction Law Australia offers the Brooking Prize annually for the best essay submitted in the field of construction law.  It is named after The Hon Robert Brooking AO QC in recognition of his Honour’s pioneering contribution to the study and practice of construction law in Australia.

The inaugural Brooking Prize was awarded in 2010.  Information about the 2010-11 prizes is set out below.

Candidates may select any subject matter concerning the theory or practice of construction law or its application in the industry. 

The Society encourages entries from all disciplines and levels of experience.  Entries within the general and student divisions will be judged separately.

The Judging Panel will allocate marks as follows:

• 50% - ‘Originality of thought or approach and contribution to the study or practice of construction law or its application in the industry’.

• 40% - ‘Quality of analysis, explanation and discussion of chosen topic’.  Considerable weight is given to the freshness of ideas and the value of the work.

• 10% - ‘Clarity of presentation, grammar, spelling, punctuation and any referencing’.  Entries are to conform to the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (available at http://mulr.law.unimelb.edu.au/go/aglc).

NB: Entries must be original, ie, not previously published elsewhere. The Society reserves the right to publish any entries in hard copy and/or on its website, with copyright being held jointly by the author and the Society.  The Society will not unreasonably refuse publication elsewhere of any entry provided that a note acknowledging the paper’s original submission to (and, if applicable, publication by) the Society in respect of the Brooking Prize is included in such publication.

Entries are to be:

• Not more than 5,000 words (Note: While footnoting or other method of referencing sources does not count towards this total and is encouraged, footnoting is not to be used for substantive text.  The judging panel’s usual practice is to disregard the text of the paper to the extent it exceeds 5,000 words.)

• Identifiable by essay title only: It is important that the author’s name, company name or any other identifier does not appear anywhere on the paper itself!

• Accompanied by a covering letter or email:

o   showing the title of entry, author’s name, daytime telephone number and email address;

o   confirming that the author accepts the terms set out in this invitation;

o   advising whether the author is available to participate in the Fourth International Construction Law Conference in Melbourne from 6-8 May 2012 (this is for the information only of the Conference organizers and does not constitute an invitation to participate or a judging criterion); and

o   indicating whether the essay is submitted in the general or student division (entrants in the student division must be currently-enrolled students and are to provide the name of their institution and student number; the same entry may be entered in both divisions, but only one prize or commendation may be awarded per entry). 

The Society retains absolute discretion as to whether to award a prize in any category.

Joint entries (no more than two authors) will be accepted but joint authors are to share any prize awarded.

Entries must be submitted in Microsoft Word (not pdf) format and received by 4.00pm Sydney time on Friday 16 March 2012, by email to the Secretary at rrana@wentworthchambers.com.au.  Late entries will not be forwarded to the judges.

These rules may be altered at any time by the Society.

Please direct any queries to the Chair of the Academic Subcommittee, Matthew Bell, m.bell@unimelb.edu.au.

2011 Prize results

At the function held in Melbourne on 19 May 2011, the following results were announced by the Hon. Robert Brooking AO QC:

In accordance with the advertised Prize rules, the Society exercised its discretion not to award a First or Second Prize this year.

2010 Prize results

The following sets out the results of the judging of the 2010 Brooking Prize as announced by The Honourable Robert Brooking AO QC at the Society’s inaugural conference in Perth on 19 June 2010.

Award	Author	Location	Title of paper
FIRST PRIZE	Trevor Thomas	Melbourne	Alliancing Contracts and Fiduciary Duties: Trust and Confidence in Relationship Contracting Published at (2011) 28 International Construction Law Review 364
SECOND PRIZE	David Ulbrick	Melbourne	No Dispute – testing the wisdom of Abrahamson Published at (2010) 21 Insurance Law Journal 96
Highly Commended	Moshe Ross	Melbourne	The Status of the Prevention Principle Published at (2011) 27 Const LJ 15
Highly Commended	Justin O’Callaghan	Brisbane	Syndicating Performance Risk in Major Projects
Commended	Wayne Jocic	Melbourne	Scholarship in Australian Construction Law
Commended	Romauld Andrew	Melbourne	Fabrication of Unjust Enrichment Published at (2010) 26 Building and Construction Law Journal 314
Commended	Sean McCarthy	Canberra	Ethics in Construction
Commended	Teena Zhang	Melbourne	Rethinking Risk: Government Support for Debt Financing in PPPs Post GFC
Commended (student division)	Phebe Mann	Buckingham, UK	US Copyright Law in the Protection of intellectual Property Rights and Interests of Architects and Engineers

 

You might also like to listen to the podcast in which Matthew Bell (Chair, Academic Subcommittee) and Trevor Thomas (inaugural winner of the Prize) talk about the Brooking Prize, and Professor Philip Britton talks about the Hudson Prize, the equivalent prize awarded by the Society of Construction Law (UK).