ALI member Sarah E. Ricks, Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School, has been awarded the Legal Writing Scholarship Grant for her forthcoming article in the UCLA Law Review. The grant, co-sponsored by the Association of Legal Writing Directors, the Legal Writing Institute, and LexisNexis, recognizes outstanding scholarship in legal research and communication. Professor Ricks was the sole recipient this year.
Her article, "Suppressing Constitutional Law: Qualified Immunity and Non-precedential Opinions," examines how federal appellate courts’ widespread use of non-precedential opinions undermines constitutional litigation. She argues that these unpublished decisions significantly narrow the path for civil rights plaintiffs, particularly under the qualified immunity doctrine, by limiting the precedent available to show that a right was "clearly established."
Ricks proposes reforms to both qualified immunity and appellate procedures, aiming to increase government accountability and clarify constitutional protections.
The UCLA Law Review praised the article as a “timely and incisive examination” of a crucial but underexplored area of judicial decision-making.
A longtime ALI member, Professor Ricks is also the author of Current Issues in Constitutional Litigation: A Context and Practice Casebook (4th ed. forthcoming) and has served on Philadelphia’s antidiscrimination agency since 2008.