Wayne Law alumna wins 3rd prize in national writing competition

Lauren Rennert, who graduated in May from Wayne State University Law School, has won the $1,000 third prize in the 2015 Founding Fathers Religious Liberty Student Writing Competition. The J. Reuben Clark Law Society and the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University sponsor this competition, which is in its sixth year. The purpose of the competition is to promote legal and academic studies in the field of religious liberty by law students and students pursuing related graduate studies. Rennert's piece, "Get While the Getting is Good: An Analysis of Civil Remedies as a Solution to the Agunah," is about the resolution of Jewish law and constitutional law in regard to a get (a Jewish divorce). Under Jewish law, the only way a marriage can be dissolved is the death of a spouse or by deliverance of a get. In the absence of a get, a Jewish woman is deemed an agunah (chained woman), who isn't able to remarry. Alternatively, a man may freely remarry in the absence of a get. Rennert's paper analyzes case law, Jewish law and various civil remedies that serve as potential constitutional solutions to the plight of the agunah. According to the J. Reuben Clark Law Society Writing Competition Committee, this year's competition had the largest number of participants. Rennert will accept her award at a dinner in October in Washington, D.C. She works in patent litigation at Brooks Kushman. While a student at Wayne Law, she was president of the Wayne Intellectual Property Student Association and director of networking for the Jewish Law Student Association. She has served as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. Published: Thu, Oct 01, 2015