Section on Scholarship at AALS
Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Supporting Legal Scholarship
Call for Nominations
The Section on Scholarship at AALS is currently accepting nominations for its annual Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Supporting Legal Scholarship. This award honors a member of the legal academy who has demonstrated an exceptional commitment to mentoring other law professors by supporting their research, scholarship, or creative inquiry.
Eligibility:
- Any faculty member or administrator employed full-time by an AALS member institution in eligible to be nominated for this Award.
- The nomination should demonstrate or provide evidence of how the faculty member or administrator has gone to extraordinary lengths to mentor and support the research, scholarship, and creative inquiry of his or her colleagues.
- Self-nominations will not be accepted.
Nomination Process: To nominate a faculty member of administrator for the Award, please submit a nomination letter that details the nominee’s contributions to mentoring and supporting the legal scholarship of others. With your nomination, you may include letters of support from other colleagues who have been mentored by this person as well.
Selection Criteria: In choosing a winner, the selection committee is especially looking for:
- Scholars who have demonstrated a dedication to mentoring other scholars.
- Scholars who have demonstrated a commitment to fostering scholarly growth in others.
- Scholars whose support of their colleagues’ research, scholarship, or creative inquiry can be documented in terms of its extensiveness.
- Scholars whose mentorship can be demonstrated in terms of its impact.
We encourage you to recognize and celebrate the scholarly mentors who have made a meaningful difference to your academic journey. The recipient of the Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Supporting Legal Scholarship will be honored in January at a ceremony during the 2007 AALS Annual Meeting in New York City.
Past award winners of the Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Supporting Legal Scholarship have included Professor Mark A. Lemley (Stanford) and Professor Sidney D. Watson (Saint Louis University).
Deadline: The deadline to submit nomination materials is Friday, October 2, 2026. Please write “AALS Award for Excellence in Mentoring – [Nominee’s Name]” in the subject line of your email and direct all submissions (and any questions) to Section Chair Eugene Mazo (mazo@duq.edu).