Chloe Gordils '19 Honored with Burton Distinguished Legal Writing Award

Chloe Gordils ’19, Executive Articles Editor of the Brooklyn Law Review, was one of 10 law school students nationally to receive the Burton Distinguished Legal Writing Award. She was honored for her note, Google, Charlottesville, and the Need to Protect Private Employees’ Political Speech, 84 Brooklyn Law Review 189 (2018). The awards will be presented at a ceremony on May 20.

This is the second year in a row that a Brooklyn Law School student has won the prestigious writing award. Last year, Alexa Bordner ‘18, who was also Executive Articles Editor of Brooklyn Law Review, was selected for her note, How New York Drinks: If and How Third-Party Providers Can Integrate with the Three-Tier System, 83 Brooklyn Law Review 251 (2017).

Recipients of the award this year hailed from Stanford, Cornell, University of Michigan, Emory, Fordham, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin, Howard and University of Miami. “It is an incredible honor to receive praise for my note, especially if such recognition brings any attention to important employment and free speech issues,” said Gordils. “I owe any academic success in part to my fellow Brooklyn Law Review members and to the Brooklyn Law School faculty. And I am thankful for my academic mentors, including Professor Joel Gora, who consistently fostered an environment in which I could learn deeply, think critically, and openly speak my mind.”

“Chloe’s note on protecting the free speech rights of private employees carefully analyzes the very real problem of trying to protect free speech when the First Amendment does not apply because it is not government doing the censorship,” said Gora, who advised Gordils on her note. “Her strong, personal commitment to free speech and her fine lawyerly skills have combined to produce an extremely persuasive case for free speech protection and a very promising statutory proposal to try to achieve it.”

Professor Beryl Jones-Woodin, faculty advisor to the Brooklyn Law Review, praised Gordils’ accomplishment.“Chloe’s thoughtfully written note clearly demonstrates her legal scholarship, and I am pleased—but not surprised—to see her work recognized on a national level,” she said. “The recognition of our students two years in a row is also a testament to the Law School’s excellent academic program.”

The Burton Awards were created in 1999 to honor effective legal writing, and have expanded to honor other legal achievements, including legal writing, publications, and law reforms. The program honors partners in law firms and law students who use plain, clear and concise language in their writing, as well as lawyers in the military and the executive branch of government, journalists, and law professors.