Date Chartered: 1/1/1973

Purpose

The Section on Professional Responsibility promotes the communication of ideas, interests, and activities among members, provides support for pedagogical and scholarly endeavors, and facilitates dialogue on matters of interest in the teaching and improvement of the law relating to the legal profession and issues of professional responsibility.

Leadership   Section Members

Fred Zacharias Memorial Prize

The Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize for Scholarship in Professional Responsibility is awarded yearly to an outstanding work in legal ethics by the AALS Section on Professional Responsibility. Zacharias, a law professor at University of San Diego Law School, died in 2009 at the age of 56, after a career as a nationally known expert in professional responsibility, writing on the ethical duties that lawyers have to the legal system and society as well as clients. This prize was established to honor and carry on his work.

Deborah L. Rhode Award

The Deborah L. Rhode Award honors the contributions, service, and leadership of Deborah Rhode by recognizing a new trailblazer in legal education and the legal profession.  The award is given annually by four Sections of the Association of American Law Schools in which Deborah Rhode made an indelible impact—Section on Leadership, Section on Pro Bono & Service Opportunities, Section on Professional Responsibility, and Section on Women in Legal Education. The award is given to a legal academic or lawyer who exemplifies the groundbreaking work, imagination and inspired action of Deborah Rhode during her career. The recipient is someone who has great potential to make a mark during their career as evidenced by work that brings a novel perspective or call for action in legal education or the legal profession.

Nominations and Eligibility:

 

Recipients

Year Award Name Recipient Law School
2023 Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize Matthew Kim Judicial Law Clerk on the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Miami, Florida
2022 Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize W. Bradley Wendel Cornell Law School
2022 Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize Angela Onwuachi-Willig Boston University School of Law
2022 Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize Anthony V. Alfieri University of Miami School of Law
2021 Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize Irene Joe University of California Davis School of Law
2021 Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize Noah Rosenblum New York University School of Law
2020 Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize Michael Moffit University of Oregon School of Law
2020 Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize Jessica A. Roth Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
2019 Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize Eric Fish Federal Defenders of San Diego Inc.
2018 Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize Robert Gordon University of California, Davis School of Law
2017 Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize Leslie C. Levin

 

Kate Levine

University of Connecticut School of Law

St. John’s University School of Law

2016 Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize Elizabeth Camblee Burch

Morris A. Ratner

University of Georgia School of Law

University of California, Hastings College of Law

2015 Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize Russell M. Gold New York University School of Law