Need a Paper Topic?

Finding a good topic to write about can often be a frustrating part of the writing process.  To help, the Litigation Section of the Utah Bar has developed a topic bank where members of the bar supply possible paper topics that can be claimed by students.  The topic bank’s FAQs explain the reason for the topic bank:

“The basic idea behind the project is that each year hundreds of law students in Utah (and thousands outside of Utah) are searching for things to write about. Meanwhile, thousands of Utah attorneys and judges are working in the trenches where interesting topic ideas can be unearthed; the Utah Bar Journal and other legal publications are always looking to publish relevant timely articles; and the bar and bench at large appreciate access to such articles. This project is designed to get topics that are found in the trenches into the hands of students. Over time, we expect some of the topics will end up as published articles, assisting legal publications and the bench and bar. But the primary focus of this project is simply to get interesting topics to students.”

Currently the topic bank contains 246 possible topic ideas that are added to regularly.  Students that find a topic they are interested can email the litigation section to “claim” the topic, and “claimed” topics will be identified in the topic bank.  In my quick look through it appeared that only a handful of topics had been “claimed” at this point.

If you’re looking for a paper topic you should definitely check out this site.  I think it’s a great idea and I applaud the Litigation Section for developing it.