Pitt Law grad credits creative writing class for her winning story in ABA Journal's 2025 Ross Writing Contest
A creative writing class at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law awakened a love for writing and led to a $5,000 prize for the winner of the 2025 ABA Journal/Ross Writing Contest for Legal Short Fiction.
Murphy DePompei won the ABA Journal contest with her short story “26 Days,” which explores an associate’s struggle to avoid alcohol at a law firm event.
DePompei chose the topic because she believes it is an issue in the legal profession. She has found that a lot of networking events serve alcohol, spurring Pitt Law to promote options such as mocktails in response.
DePompei says she was surprised and excited to learn she won the contest. Although she has sometimes written short stories as a hobby, she never pursued writing in any meaningful way, she says. Nor has she ever had her fiction published.
Pitt Law likely offered the “persuasive narrative” class to promote writing that isn’t clinical or formulaic, DePompei says. “They wanted us to maintain and flex our muscles of creative writing, so we didn’t turn into robots. It also helped us put a little bit of soul back into our legal writing,” she observes.
The assignment was to write a story dealing with the law. One classmate’s story dealt with an alternative universe in which artificial intelligence replaced the judicial system. In another story, Philadelphia sports mascots solved a crime together.
The writing process was difficult. No one liked the first drafts of their own stories. DePompei discovered she needed to let go of her perfectionism during the process.
DePompei is currently studying for the bar exam. A former summer associate at Dinsmore & Shohl, she will join the law firm’s public finance group in September. Although she was hired as a litigation associate, DePompei discovered she liked public finance better when she was given an assignment helping with writing bond-issue documents for the construction of an elementary school.
DePompei says she has been a student “from kindergarten to JD.” She is a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she majored in public policy and Spanish. She chose Pitt Law after her parents moved to Pittsburgh.
It was a good choice. “I adore the University of Pittsburgh School of Law,” she says. She also enjoys being close to family. Winning the ABA Journal award with a job lined up in BigLaw is the culmination of “mentorship, love and support,” she says.
The ABA Journal/Ross Writing Contest for Legal Short Fiction awards a $5,000 prize to the winning writer of a story that illuminates the role of the law or lawyers in modern society. The winner is judged by a panel selected by the Journal’s editor and publisher and confirmed by the Journal’s Board of Editors.
Entries were judged on creativity, plot exposition, legal insight and character development. “26 Days” will be available to read on the ABA Journal website beginning the week of Thanksgiving.
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