Michigan lawyer wins inaugural ABA Journal/Ross Contest for Short Fiction
Michigan lawyer Lance Hendrickson has been selected winner of the ABA Journal/Ross Contest for Short Fiction.
Culled from more than 135 entries, Hendrickson’s short story, “It’s Legal, There,” traces the fictional case of a woman accused of killing her child two years after the fact. The judges said Hendrickson’s story “reveals with heartbreaking honesty the painful practical advice lawyers must sometimes convey to their clients.”
Hendrickson, 44, lives in Whitehall, Mich. He will receive a $3,000 cash prize, which will be presented at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 19. The cash prize is made possible by a trust from the estate of Judge Erskine M. Ross of Los Angeles. This is the first year of the short fiction contest.
The short fiction award will be made in conjunction with the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, which is sponsored by the ABA Journal and the University of Alabama School of Law. The Harper Lee Prize is awarded each year for the novel that best illuminates the role of lawyers and law in society.
