The Yale Law Journal is pleased to announce the two winners of its annual Student Essay Competition, focused this year on emerging issues in Journalism, Communication & Media Law. The two Essays will be published in the Yale Law Journal Forum in early 2021. All Forum pieces are fully searchable and available on LexisNexis and Westlaw, as well as on our website.

The two winning Essays are:

Meenakshi Krishnan, The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Petition Clause: Rethinking the First Amendment Right of Access

Meenakshi Krishnan received her J.D. in 2018 from Yale Law School, where she was a Student Director of the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic and an Executive Editor of the Yale Law Journal. During law school, Krishnan worked for the Wikimedia Foundation, National Public Radio’s Office of the General Counsel, and Jenner and Block. A Fulbright scholar, Krishnan received her B.A. summa cum laude in History and Political Science from Wake Forest University and her M.Phil. in International Relations and Politics from the University of Cambridge. After graduating from law school, she clerked for the Hon. James A. Wynn, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and completed a legal fellowship at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. In November, she will join Davis Wright Tremaine LLP as an associate in the firm’s media law practice.

Justin Aimonetti & Christian Talley, How Two Rights Made a Wrong—Sullivan, Anti-SLAPP, and the Under-Enforcement of Public Figure Defamation Torts

Justin Aimonetti earned his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was awarded Order of the Coif, served as an Articles Editor on the Virginia Law Review, and contributed as a member of the law school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. Justin’s scholarship has appeared or will appear in the Virginia Law Review, Yale Law Journal Forum, Stanford Law Review Online, Creighton Law Review, George Washington Law Review Arguendo, Pepperdine Law Review, and other journals and reviews. He currently clerks on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Justin received a master’s degree in Legal History from the University of Virginia and a B.A. cum laude in History and Political Science from Columbia University.

Christian Talley earned his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was awarded Order of the Coif honors. In law school, he served as a Notes Editor on the Virginia Law Review and as a research assistant for Professor Saikrishna Prakash. His legal writing has appeared in leading journals, including the Stanford Law Review Online, George Washington Law Review Arguendo, and SMU Law Review Forum. He also authored an academic monograph published by the University of Notre Dame Press. He currently clerks on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and thereafter will clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Prior to law school, Christian received a master’s degree in History, with distinction, from Oxford University, and a B.A. in History, magna cum laude and with highest honors, from Vanderbilt University.