Babson Students, Professor Recognized for Legal Research at ALSB Conference

Three Babson College students and a professor were finalists for awards at the centennial conference of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) in Washington, D.C. 

Russell Kitsis ’24 and a team of Cosima de Chimay ’26 and Raphaella Mendes ’26 were named finalists in the Student Paper Competition. And, Professor Adam Sulkowski was a finalist for the Nancy Kubasek Award for Best Environmental Law & Sustainability Paper. 

Kitsis, a Babson Honors Program student, earned Honorable Mention recognition, placing second for his research paper and presentation, “Is the 1% Excise Tax on Stock Buybacks an Appropriate Use of Tax Policy?” The paper is his final Honors Project, and Sulkowski is the faculty advisor for his honors research. 

“I’m very proud that I won Honorable Mention and was able to share my ideas with law professors,” Kitsis said. “It was also a crazy coincidence that I ran into U.S. Senator Ed Markey at the airport and was able to interview him for my project the day before I presented.” 

The team of de Chimay and Mendes also was a finalist for their paper, “Reuters v the People,” which addressed the intersection of intellectual property law and artificial intelligence. Mendes said presenting at the conference “with my research partner was an honor and a privilege that has encouraged me now more than ever to pursue a law degree after Babson,” Mendes said. 

Sulkowski was recognized as a finalist for his paper, “AI, ESG, and Law: Potential, Limitations, and Strategies Concerning Artificial Intelligence in Sustainability Reporting. His research, which was supported by the Babson Faculty Research Fund, also has been accepted into the Texas Environmental Law Journal, a top research publication.