Peter Cane Prize 2025
Submissions for the Peter Cane Legal Reasoning Prize 2025 are now closed as of the 3rd of February 2025.
The Prize Giving Day will take place at Corpus Christi College, Oxford on 18/3/25, and invitations to attend this day will be sent out to the authors of the top ten 'Highly Commended' Submissions. First prize will be an award of up to £175, second prize an award of up to £75; the prizes can be shared.
We greatly look forward to receiving your answer's to this year's question!
Guidance for Submissions:
- Answers should be written in response to the problem outlined on this year's question sheet, which can be accessed below.
- Answers should be no more than 2000 words long, inclusive of all titles, subtitles, references, and footnotes. (Please note that a separate bibliography is not necessary in cases where the candidate's footnotes are sufficiently detailed.)
- Ideally, all answers should be submitted in size 12 font, formatted with 1.5 line spacing.
- Candidates can use any citation style that they prefer, but should remain consistent throughout. Information on the University's own form of legal citation can be found here.
- Candidates may discuss the material of their answers with colleagues and teachers, but all submitted work must be their own.
- Upon submission, all answer documents should be named 'Peter Cane Prize 2025, LAST NAME, FIRST NAME'.
Sample answers can be accessed below as examples of highly regarded work from previous years. Additionally, a short video of useful guidance is also available here.
Peter Cane Prize 2024
The Peter Cane Prize Giving Day took place on Tuesday 12th March 2024. We welcomed 10 attendees who had received 'Highly Commended' certificates for their work to the College, as well as our second runner up, Sydney Chan, our first runner up Freddy Moorman, and our winner, Isabel Chan.
Congratulations to Isabel, Freddy, and Sydney! And many thanks to all those who participated and sent in their work.
The History of the Peter Cane Prize
The prize was launched in 2017 and seeks to promote engagement with the ideas and reasoning behind law and legal studies, and particular to encourage those from all backgrounds and walks of life to apply to engage with the academic study of law. The prize is named after the distinguished lawyer, Professor Peter Cane, an internationally acclaimed scholar of legal theory, obligations and public law, and Corpus’ first dedicated law fellow. Each year, the final shortlisted candidates are invited to attend an afternoon event hosted by Corpus Christi, with legal workshops and an award ceremony. The Prize is open to all Year 12 and Year 13 students (or equivalent). You can see the sample question and the sample answers:
Sample answer 1
Sample answer 2
Sample answer 3
If you have questions about the Peter Cane Law Prize, please contact the Outreach Team at admissions.office@ccc.ox.ac.uk