Harvard Law School Professors John C.P. Goldberg, Vicki C. Jackson, and Martha Minow have been recognized by the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) for their excellence in legal education.

The awards, hosted by several of the Association’s 107 sections, are organized around various academic disciplines and topics of interest.

Goldberg, the Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence, was awarded the Section on Jurisprudence Hart-Dworkin Award in Legal Philosophy along with his longtime co-author Benjamin Zipursky of Fordham Law; Jackson, the Laurence H. Tribe Professor of Constitutional Law, was awarded the Section on Federal Courts Daniel J. Meltzer Award; and Minow, the 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard, received the Section on Women in Legal Education Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award.

This year’s winners were acknowledged during an awards ceremony at the 2024 AALS Annual Meeting on January 4.

An expert in tort law, tort theory, and political philosophy, John Goldberg received the Hart-Dworkin Award in Legal Philosophy for his “significant and lasting contributions to the philosophical understanding of law.” Goldberg joined Harvard Law School’s faculty in 2008 and served as a deputy dean from 2017 to 2022.

Goldberg was recognized alongside Benjamin Zipursky, his longtime collaborator and co-author. Their book “Recognizing Wrongs” (Harvard University Press 2020) has been widely acclaimed and their casebook, “Tort Law: Responsibilities and Redress” (Aspen 2021) (5th ed.) (with L. Kendrick & A. Sebok), has been used in law schools across the country over the past two decades. Goldberg is also the author or co-author of dozens of articles and essays in scholarly journals.  

Goldberg currently serves as an Associate Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatements of Property, and as an adviser to the Third Restatement of Torts. He is also a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Tort Law and Legal Theory. Goldberg was recognized by the AALS Section on Torts and Compensation Systems with its 2022 William L. Prosser Award.

Vicki Jackson: Daniel J. Meltzer Award

Vicki Jackson, who writes and teaches about U.S. constitutional law, federal courts, and comparative constitutional law, received the AALS Section on Federal Courts’ Daniel J. Meltzer Award, established the award in 2017 to honor the life and work of the late HLS faculty member. The award recognizes a professor of federal courts who has exemplified over the course of their career Meltzer’s excellence in teaching, careful and ground-breaking scholarship, engagement in issues of public importance, generosity as a colleague, and overall contribution to the field of federal courts.

Jackson is the author of “Constitutional Engagement in a Transnational Era” (2010), and coauthor, with Professor Mark Tushnet, of “Comparative Constitutional Law” (3d ed. 2014), a course book in the field. She has written on federalism, gender equality, election law, free speech, knowledge institutions, sovereign immunity, justiciability, judicial independence, proportionality review, the co-evolution of international and constitutional law, methodological challenges in comparative constitutional law, and other topics.

In addition to being on advisory boards of scholarly journals (Federal Law Review and Global Constitutionalism), she was the Reporter for the ALI’s Project, Principles of the Law: Student Sexual Misconduct: Procedural Frameworks for Colleges and Universities, from 2015 to 2021. She has served on the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools, as its President, and as Chair of the AALS Federal Courts Section. She has also served on the Executive Committee of the International Association of Constitutional Law, on the Board of Managerial Trustees of the International Association of Women Judges, and on the D.C. Bar Board of Governors.

Martha Minow: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award

Martha Minow received the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award from the AALS’ Section on Women in Legal Education, which honors an individual who has had a distinguished career of teaching, service, and scholarship and is someone who has “impacted women, the legal community, the academy, and the issues that affect women through mentoring, writing, speaking, activism, and by providing opportunities to others.”

Minow, who has taught at Harvard Law School since 1981, served as dean of the Law School from 2009 to 2017, and in 2018, she was named a University Professor, Harvard’s highest faculty honor.

An expert in human rights and advocacy for members of racial and religious minorities and for women, children, and persons with disabilities, she also writes and teaches about digital communications, democracy, privatization, military justice, and ethnic and religious conflict. Her courses include civil procedure, constitutional law, fairness and privacy, family law, international criminal justice, jurisprudence, law and education, nonprofit organizations, and the public law workshop.

The Association of American Law Schools is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit association of 176 member and 18 fee-paid law schools. Its members enroll most of the nation’s law students and produce the majority of the country’s lawyers and judges, as well as many of its lawmakers. Founded in 1900, the mission of AALS is to uphold and advance excellence in legal education.


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