UT Winston College of Law Student Wins 2025 Hastings Writing Competition - Articles

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UT Winston College of Law Student Wins 2025 Hastings Writing Competition

Posted by: Jarod Word on Jun 4, 2025

The TBA Environmental Law Section has announced Layton Coker, a student at the University of Tennessee (UT) Winston College of Law, as the winner of its Hastings Writing Competition for 2025. The judges felt that Coker’s essay, Paradise Lost: Environmental Justice Gaps in TVA’s Clean Energy Transition, was both timely and captured the spirit of the competition.

This year’s decision was a difficult one, with recent Nashville School of Law graduate Emily Crawford’s essay, Jarkesy, Juries and Justice: The Future of EPA Civil Penalties, selected as a close runner-up. Rounding out the competition were exceptional entries by UT Winston College of Law student Logan Hawkins and University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law student Owen King, who submitted papers on the Environmental Footprint of the xAI Facility in Memphis and Tennessee’s Regulatory Opportunities and the Clean Water Act, respectively.

The competition, founded in memory of one of the Environmental Law Section's founding members, Jon E. Hastings, is a juried competition for the best legal writing on a topic of Tennessee or federal environmental law. TBA's Environmental Law Section executive council would like to thank all participants for their thoughtful and impressive entries.

Editor's Note: The essays are shared as submitted.