Winners of the 2025 Mary Moers Wenig Student Writing Competition

John T. Rogers, Jr., President of The ACTEC Foundation, and Elizabeth A. Bawden and Gerry W. Beyer, Co-Chairs of the Legal Education Committee of The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), are pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Mary Moers Wenig Student Writing Competition.  

First-Place Winner

Chase Kristofer Duncan for “The Right of Publicity Predicament: Valuing a Postmortem Asset in the Context of Future Technological Development”

“I am honored to be awarded first place in the 2025 Mary Moers Wenig Student Writing Competition! I am grateful to my faculty advisor, Professor John Becker, for his encouragement to submit my paper and his guidance throughout the process. I also appreciate The ACTEC Foundation for supporting education in trusts and estates, an area of the law that I find particularly fascinating. I hope my paper encourages discussion about how to best conduct the valuation of various assets for estate tax purposes, as the environments that shape these valuations change.”

Second-Place Winner

Amanda Covaleski for “Inheriting the Right to Reclaim: When Copyright Termination Rights Supersede Testamentary Wishes”

“I thank ACTEC and the competition judges for selecting my paper as the second place winner. I owe a special thanks to Professor Kathy Mandelbaum, whose guidance helped me shape a nebulous idea and multiple rough drafts into a piece I was proud to submit to ACTEC. Writing this paper was a wonderful opportunity to explore a legal passion and deepen my knowledge of estate planning and its intersection with other areas of the law. I’m thankful to the judges for finding the tension between inheritance law and copyright as compelling as I do.“

Third-Place Winner

Pierson Broadwater for “Will of the Voiceless: Aphasia and the Shortcomings of the Testamentary Capacity Doctrine”

“I am sincerely grateful for the recognition of my work by ACTEC and the judges, and am honored to receive this award. I owe special thanks to Professor Bridget Crawford, not only for her guidance and mentorship as I completed this project, but also for introducing me to the field of trusts & estates and the many interesting and important issues therein. It is my hope that my paper, in however small a way, helps lift the voices of aphasia patients and raises awareness of this devastating condition.”

Honorable Mention Winners

Abigail Dood for “Clarifying the UTC § 603 Chaos: A Survey of State Approaches to Settlor Incapacity in Revocable Trusts”
Arizona State University – Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law

Daniel Perkins for “QTIP Terminations & § 2519: A Tale of Gift Taxing Complexity”
New York University School of Law

Julia Madeleine Perry for “Conception from Beyond the Grave: Posthumous Gamete Retrieval, Heirship, and a Rebuttable Presumption of Non-Consent”
University of San Diego School of Law

Clay Saffran-Johnson for “Codifying Heggstad Petitions in California”
UC Davis School of Law