GLS Awards

Individual Winners

This category recognizes individuals around the world who have made significant contributions to the promotion and improvement of global legal skills.

• Prof. David W. Austin (California Western School of Law, San Diego, California, United States) in recognition of his longstanding commitment to legal skills education around the world and in appreciation of his many contributions to the Global Legal Skills Conference Series. [2018 Winner]
• Dr. Amrtia Bahri (Head of Global Legal Skills and Common Law Program, ITAM University, Mexico) in recognition of her demonstrated and energetic commitment to the promotion of global legal skills. [2016 Winner]
• Prof. M. Catherine Beck (Department of English, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indiana, United States) is recognized for creating the Legal English Program at the Indiana University Robert McKinney School of Law and for her support of global legal skills education. As a non-lawyer language specialist working in Legal English for more than 15 years, she has enhanced legal skills pedagogy for lawyers and law students who speak English as a second language. [2017 Winner]
• Prof. E. Joan Blum (Boston College Law School, Massachusetts, United States) is recognized for her years of teaching common law legal reasoning in the International Tax Program at Harvard Law School and later directing the Boston College Law Summer Institute for international lawyers, for her many publications in the field of legal writing education, for her service to the legal writing community, and for her work teaching legal reasoning and writing to judges, lawyers, and law students in the former Yugoslavia. [2017 Winner]
• Prof. Heidi Brown, New York Law School (New York, USA), was recognized for her work with students to reduce extreme fear of public speaking and increase performance in classrooms, oral arguments, and client-centered legal skills activities. [2014 Winner]
• Prof. Juliana V. Campagna, Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University (New York, USA) and Adjunct Professor of Law, Facultad Libre de Derecho de Monterrey (Mexico), was recognized for developing English Immersion Training Programs and for exceptional devotion to meeting the needs of international students around the world. [2014 Winner]
• Prof. Lurene Contento (The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, Illinois, United States) is recognized for many contributions to legal skills education around the world, including her interactive and innovative teaching in China, Central America, and Central Europe. She has shared her knowledge and ideas to improve legal writing at many international conferences and through her award-winning publications. She has given years of dedicated service to the Global Legal Skills Conference Series, ensuring its success and a positive experience for the participants. Over the years she has helped thousands of law students, including many non-native speakers of English. She has also contributed to the professionalization of writing centers across the United States through her leadership as Chair of the Association of Legal Writing Specialists. [2017 Winner]
• Prof. Sha-Shana Crichton (Howard University School of Law, Washington, D.C., United States), in recognition of her steadfast commitment to the promotion of global legal skills education and for advancing diversity and inclusion in legal education around the world. [2018 Winner]
• Dean Marion Dent (ANO Pericles, Moscow, Russian Federation) was recognized for her work in higher education in Russia and for her work to bring the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition to Russia. [2014 Winner]
• Prof. Diane Penneys Edelman (Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law), in recognition of her early and sustained contributions to the promotion of legal skills internationally, to international legal exchange programs, and to closer cooperation between law professors and the global practicing bar. [2018 Winner]
• Prof. Kimberly Holst (Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, United States) is recognized for her efforts on projects that advance legal skills training in the United States and around the world. Her recent scholarship examines the importance of teaching reflective practices to law students so that they can develop those skills in law school and transfer them to practice. She also explores drafting techniques in the context of alternative dispute resolution. She has also served the legal writing community through her leadership of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research. She also enhanced the ability of presenters to make presentation proposals to the Global Legal Skills Conference, deepening the pool of presenters from around the world. [2017 Winner]
• Matthew J. Homewood (Nottingham Trent University, England, United Kingdom) is recognized for his extensive experience in teaching and innovative curriculum development across a comprehensive range of undergraduate, post-graduate, professional, and practitioner programs. He is the Acting Head of Postgraduate Programmes at Nottingham Law School, England. He has significant expertise in the use of educational technology and the impact of such technologies on student engagement. Matthew recently received an HEA National Teaching Fellowship, the most prestigious individual award in the United Kingdom for excellence in teaching in higher education. [2017 Winner]
• Dr. Chantal Morton (Melbourne Law School, Australia) is a senior lecturer at Melbourne Law School, where she develops resources and runs programs with a focus on legal writing and academic skills for law students and graduate law students. She is recognized for her work to improve legal skills education in Australia. Before joining the faculty at Melbourne Law School, she taught at the Osgoode Hall Law School (Canada) where she was also the Director of Career Services. Dr. Morton will be a Co-Chair of the 2018 Global Legal Skills Conference to be held in Melbourne, Australia. [2017 Winner]
• Prof. Laurel Currie Oates, Seattle University School of Law, in recognition of her demonstrated commitment to excellence in global legal skills education, including work in Afghanistan and Africa. [2016 Winner]
• Prof. Robin Palmer, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, in recognition of his demonstrated commitment to excellence in global legal skills education in South Africa and New Zealand and for  his work to improve clinical legal education. [2016 Winner].
• Dr. Shelley Saltzman, Associate Director for Curriculum and Assessment and Senior Lecturer for the American Language Program (ALP) at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies (New York, USA), received the Global Legal Skills (GLS) Award for Outstanding Contributions to International Legal Skills Education for 25 years of innovation. [2015 Winner]
• Prof. Mimi Samuel, Seattle University School of Law, in recognition of her demonstrated commitment to excellence in global legal skills education, including work in Afghanistan and Africa. [2016 Winner]
• Prof. Rebecca Schillings (Hamad bin Khalifa University College of Law and Public Policy, Qatar) is an Assistant Professor at Hamad bin Khalifa University’s College of Law and Public Policy (CLPP), where she is responsible for the legal skills component of the curriculum. She created a legal lab that engages law students in experimentation and interactive prototyping to develop new approaches to legal practice. Rebecca is a U.S.-qualified lawyer with significant experience advising clients who transact business globally. [2017 Winner]
• Prof. Lynn Su (New York Law School) in recognition of her strong commitment to promoting global legal skills education, cross-cultural communication, and the empowerment of diverse students. [2018 Winner]
• Elena Trosclair, Associate Professor, Ural State Law University, Yekaterinburg, Russian Federation, was recognized for her dedication to teaching English to law students in the Russian Federation and for promoting scholarship in global legal skills. [2015 Winner]

This category recognizes exceptional books and articles that advance the teaching of global legal skills, including new casebooks and texts for lawyers and law students.

• Cynthia M. Adams, The International Lawyer’s Guide to Legal Analysis and Communication in the United States (Wolters Kluwer 2008). [2014 Winner, with Deborah B. McGregor]
• Mary Ann E. Archer, International Law Legal Research (Carolina Academic Press 2013), a book designed to enrich international law courses by showing students how to research sources of international law, and to help law schools create stand-alone courses in international law legal research. [2014 Winner, with Anthony Winer and Lyonette Louis-Jacques]
• Prof. Laura Carballo Piñeiro (University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain), for the book, Comparative Law for Spanish–English Speaking Lawyers: Legal Cultures, Legal Terms and Legal Practices (Edward Elgar Publishing 2017). [2017 Winner, with S.I. Strong and Katia Fach Gómez].
• Prof. Katia Fach Gómez (University of Zaragoza, Spain) for the book, Comparative Law for Spanish–English Speaking Lawyers: Legal Cultures, Legal Terms and Legal Practices (Edward Elgar Publishing 2017). [2017 Winner, with S.I. Strong and Laura Carballo Piñeiro].
• Paul Kossof (Beijing, China) in recognition of his books that promote a better understanding of Chinese law and the Chinese legal system, including Chinese Legal Research, the condensed guide to legal research in China for foreign researchers. [2018 Winner]
• Lyonette Louis-Jacques, International Law Legal Research (Carolina Academic Press 2013), a book designed to enrich international law courses by showing students how to research sources of international law, and to help law schools create stand-alone courses in international law legal research. [2014 Winner, with Mary Ann E. Archer and Anthony Winer]
• Deborah B. McGregor, The International Lawyer’s Guide to Legal Analysis and Communication in the United States (Wolters Kluwer 2008). [2014 Winner, with Cynthia M. Adams]
• Alison Riley (United Kingdom/Italy) in recognition of her contributions to global legal skills education through years of dedicated teaching and through the publication of her co-authored books, Legal English and the Common Law and Common Law Legal English and Grammar: A Contextual Approach. [2016 Winner, with Patricia Sours]
  
• Patricia Sours (United States/Italy) in recognition of her contributions to global legal skills education through years of dedicated teaching and through the publication of her co-authored books, Legal English and the Common Law and Common Law Legal English and Grammar: A Contextual Approach. [2016 Winner, with Alison Riley]
• Prof. S.I. Strong (University of Missouri School of Law, United States), for the book, Comparative Law for Spanish–English Speaking Lawyers: Legal Cultures, Legal Terms and Legal Practices (Edward Elgar Publishing 2017).  [2017 Winner, with Katia Fach Gómez and Laura Carballo Piñeiro].
• John B. Thornton, U.S. Legal Reasoning, Writing, and Practice for International Lawyers (LexisNexis 2014). [2015 Winner]
• Anthony S. Winer, International Law Legal Research (Carolina Academic Press 2013), a book designed to enrich international law courses by showing students how to research sources of international law, and to help law schools create stand-alone courses in international law legal research. [2014 Winner, with Mary Ann E. Archer and Lyonette Louis-Jacques]

This category recognizes companies, professional associations, law firms, and other organizations around the world that give special support for global legal skills. The names of persons accepting these law firm and institutional awards are in parentheses.

• Arias and Muñoz, Costa Rica (José Antonio Muñoz F.), was recognized for innovative skills training for its lawyers and in thanks for its active support of holding the Global Legal Skills Conference in Central America. [2012 Winner]
• BarWrite and BarWrite Press, New York, USA (Dr. Mary Campbell Gallagher), for the company’s early and thoughtful recognition of the special bar exam preparation needs needs of lawyers and law students from other countries. [2014 Winner]
• The Centro de Estudios sobre la Enseñanza y el Aprendizaje del Derecho, A.C. (Mexico) in Monterrey is an independent, non-profit research center dedicated to improving the quality of the legal education and legal practice in Mexico. [2017 Winner]
• Fondazione Floresta Longo, Catania (Sicily), Italy (Prof. Antonino Longo), in recognition of its dedicated commitment to improving the quality of legal services by teaching global legal skills to lawyers and law students. [2015 Winner]
• The International Law Institute in Washington, D.C. was established in 1955 as part of Georgetown University to assist in the building of governmental and economic institutions in post-war Europe. Over the years, the ILI has provided training and technical assistance to thousands of lawyers, judges, and other government officials. It was a pioneer in creating a course in Legal English, publishing the first U.S. Coursebook on Legal English, and in creating a course to introduce the U.S. legal system to law students and lawyers from outside the United States. The ILI is headquarted in Washington DC and has regional offices in Chile, Egypt, Nigeria, Turkey, and Uganda. [2017 Winner]
• Lawbility Professional Language Program, Zurich, Switzerland (Jean-Luc Delli), in recognition of its innovative programming, publications, and demonstrated commitment to excellence in global legal skills education. [2016 Winner]
• The Legal Writing Institute Global Legal Writing Skills Committee (Professors Cara Cunningham of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and Sammy Mansour of the Michigan State University College of Law), was recognized for its support and active encouragement of global legal skills. [2014 Winner]
• The Library Teaching Team at Melbourne Law School Law Library, given to Lucie GoudieIn, Jane Jilbert, Christina Ward, and Kirsty Wilson for sharing their understanding of the global nature of law and for their longstanding and dedicated support of law students from around the world. [2018 Winner]

This category recognizes law schools around the world that give special attention to and support for global legal skills.

• Facultad Libre de Derecho de Monterrey, Mexico, was recognized for its innovative educational leadership in requiring its graduates to have taken classes in three languages, for successfully bringing the Global Legal Skills Conference to its first international destination, for hosting the GLS Conference two times in Mexico, and for other efforts to promote the study of Legal English and comparative law. [2012 Winner]
• Melbourne Law School, Melbourne, Australia, in recognition of its groundbreaking commitment to legal skills education in Australia and around the world. [2018 Winner]
• Pacific McGeorge School of Law was recognized for innovations in its legal research and writing program that introduce students to cross-cultural awareness, comparative law, and international law. [2015 Winner]
• Peking University School of Transnational Law, People’s Republic of China, in recognition of creating an academically rigorous, bilingual four-year program of legal education that prepares students for the mixture of common law, civil law, and Chinese legal traditions. [2018 Winner]
• Qatar University College of Law Lawyering Skills Program, in recognition of creating the first comprehensive program in legal writing, research, reasoning, and advocacy in the Middle East and North African region. [2018 Winner]
• University of Verona Department of Law, Italy, in recognition of its demonstrated commitment to excellence in global legal skills education and in appreciation of hosting the 2014 and 2016 Global Legal Skills Conferences. [2016 Winner]
• Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law, Bhutan, in recognition of being the first law school in the history of Bhutan and for its dedication to teaching legal skills as a fundamental part of legal education. [2018 Winner]