ABA Silver Gavel Awards Shine a Light on the Best in Legal Media

If you’re looking for motivation and inspiration, check out the Silver Gavel Award books and media finalists.
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This month, the American Bar Association announced the 24 finalists for its annual Silver Gavel Awards for Media and the Arts. Since 1958, the award has recognized outstanding work that “fosters the American public’s understanding of law and the legal system.” Whether you are looking for motivation, further education, a good read or an excellent gift idea, these finalists represent the best work in the field.

 It’s as important as ever to support reliable media and shine the spotlight on some of the best work in the field. Congratulations to the finalists.

2025 Silver Gavel Awards Finalists

This year, the 53-member awards screening committee reviewed 122 entries across all media and arts categories, including books, commentaries, documentaries, drama and literature, magazines, multimedia, newspapers, radio and television. The ABA Standing Committee on Gavel Awards will announce the final awards on May 14, and ABA President William Bay will present them on August 9 during the 2025 ABA Annual Meeting in Toronto.

Books

• “Bringing Ben Home: A Murder, a Conviction, and the Fight to Redeem American Justice” by Barbara Bradley Hagerty (Penguin Random House, Riverhead Books). On Amazon.
• “By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land” by Rebecca Nagle (HarperCollins Publishers). On Amazon.
• “Dear Sister: A Memoir of Secrets, Survival, and Unbreakable Bonds” by Michelle Horton (Grand Central Publishing). On Amazon.
• “The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America” by Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer (Flatiron Books). On Amazon.
• “The Most Powerful Court in the World: A History of the Supreme Court of the United States” by Stuart Banner (Oxford University Press). On Amazon.
• “The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It” by Corey Brettschneider (W.W. Norton and Co.). On Amazon.

Commentary

• “Ending Pay to Stay.” Tony Messenger, metro columnist (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).
• “Strict Scrutiny: SCOTUS Hands Trump Presidential Immunity,” podcast hosts Leah Litman, Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw (Crooked Media).

Documentary

• “Nature of the Crime,” Break Thru Films, HBO Documentary Films.
• “The First Amendment: New York Times v. Sullivan,” Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics – Annenberg Public Policy Center, The Documentary Group.
• “The Sing Sing Chronicles,” NBC News Studios, MSNBC Films, Trilogy Films.
• “Zurawski v Texas,” Out of Nowhere.

Magazine Articles

• “Courting Injustice,” Bloomberg Businessweek.
• “The Eviction Cure,” Texas Monthly.

Multimedia

• “Brown v. Board of Education Revisited,” Northwestern University Knight Lab; Spooler; Respeecher; Idib Group; Neubottle. The project team reconstructed the oral arguments and the opinion from Brown v. Board of Education using human actors and artificial intelligence.

Newspaper Article Finalists       

• “Denied: Alabama’s Broken Parole System,” AL.com.
• “Meth: The Prison Pipeline,” The Dallas Morning News.
• “Prison to Plate: Profiting Off America’s Captive Workforce,” The Associated Press.
• “The Gutting of the Eighth Amendment,” Business Insider.
• “Untested: For Thousands of Victims Whose Rape Kits Were Ignored, Justice Remains Elusive,” USA Today.

Radio (Podcast)

• “AI and the Law, Explained: UnCommon Law’s 6-Episode Podcast Series,” Bloomberg Industry Group.
• “The (ir)Rational Alaskans from Cited Podcast,” Cited Media.

Television

• “Citizen Nation,” Retro Report, PBS.
• “High Stakes at the Supreme Court” ABC News.

As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law. For the association’s latest statements and other information, follow ABA news at www.americanbar.org/news.

Complete information on the Silver Gavel Awards finalists, including all who contributed to the works, can be found at Silver Gavel (americanbar.org)

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