UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Enzo M. Escalante ’27 has won the ABA Boskey Student Essay Contest on Dispute Resolution, a national competition designed to create greater interest in the field of dispute resolution among law students at U.S. law schools.
Escalante will receive a $1,000 prize, and his paper will be published on the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution website, as well as in the Section’s weekly email to its members and on its LinkedIn page.
The competition is named in memory of James B. Boskey, a former Seton Hall University School of Law professor and mediator, and it began in 2000.
Escalante’s paper is titled “The AI Boom: Mediating the Grid Expansion Disputes Reshaping Loudoun County, Virginia,” and it was informed by his personal experience.
“Writing the piece grew out of Professor Lara Fowler’s Mediation of Environmental and Public Conflicts course, which I took in my spring 2026 semester. I wrote it over the course, drawing on where I grew up, Ashburn, Va., which sits at the center of the data center boom driving the grid expansion conflicts I write about. I worked closely with Professor Fowler for feedback throughout the process,” said Escalante.
The paper includes his own observations along with extensive research. “Throughout my childhood, I have watched firsthand the landscape, the community, and the infrastructure of the place I call home change in ways that are difficult to fully convey. The gravel roads are now wider and have been paved over. The transmission towers have multiplied. The hum of data center cooling systems has joined the noises of the planes coming from the Dulles International Airport,” he notes in the paper.
Escalante is a coach and competitor on the Penn State Dickinson Law Alternative Dispute Resolution Team as well as president of the Corporate Law Society. He found out about his win as he was walking into class during his first week back at school—quite a festive reentry.
“I’m someone who has always been interested in how technology is built and financed, and I also grew up watching Loudoun County turn into the data capital of the world in real time,” he said. “Getting to write about both of those things at once and being able to contribute back to my community on such an important topic means a lot to me.”
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Penn State Dickinson Law
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