Photo: ajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).
Rachael Totz, a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, has won the law-student category of the American Constitution Society's 2026 Richard D. Cudahy Writing Competition on Regulatory and Administrative Law. The American Constitution Society announced the winners on 16 June 2026 and recognised them at its National Convention on 18 June. Our congratulations to her.
Totz, who earned a joint J.D. and Master of Bioethics at Penn, won for a paper titled "Redefining Program Integrity: Protecting Consumers and Systems in the Affordable Care Act Marketplaces." In it, she argues that the Affordable Care Act's insurance marketplaces should be assessed through a "consumer protection lens", one that connects people to affordable insurance while safeguarding their rights. Each category winner receives a $1,500 prize.
What the Cudahy Competition is
The Richard D. Cudahy Writing Competition, now in its nineteenth year, is run by the American Constitution Society to recognise outstanding scholarship on regulatory and administrative law, work that shows, in the competition's words, a "keen understanding of legal doctrine" and an "appreciation of the public impact of doctrinal and institutional choices." It runs two separate categories, one for law students and one for practicing lawyers, and is open to entrants at law schools across the country. It is named for Judge Richard D. Cudahy, a graduate of West Point and Yale Law School who was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 1979 and served until his death in 2015.
Penn Carey Law had a good year in the competition on both sides of the podium: in the same 2026 cycle, the lawyer category was won by "Unsettling the Presidency," co-authored by three prominent constitutional-law scholars, among them Penn Carey Law's own Kate Shaw.
Why it matters
A national writing prize is a scholarly credential that travels: it marks a new lawyer as someone who can identify a real problem in a complex regulatory scheme and write about it with rigor. Totz's subject, program integrity in the ACA marketplaces, sits at the intersection of health policy, administrative law, and consumer protection, exactly the kind of doctrinal-plus-institutional analysis the Cudahy prize was created to reward.
For Penn law students
University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School students and alumni have complimentary access to LegalAlphabet, where they can search legal jobs and internships worldwide. Visit the Penn Carey Law campus page, browse current openings on the United States legal jobs board, or read more from our Law School News desk.
Sources
This report is based on the announcement and competition page published by the American Constitution Society.
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