The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School is pleased to announce teaching awards for the 2024-2025 academic year.
“Exceptional teaching forms the very foundation of our institutional mission,” said Dean and Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law Sophia Z. Lee. “By honoring the awardees below, we recognize and appreciate the hard work and enthusiasm that all our faculty bring to their classrooms.”
Our 2024-2025 award recipients are as follows (in alphabetical order by winner):
Tom Baker, William Maul Measey Professor of Law, receives the Regina Austin Award for Innovation in Teaching for incorporating innovative topics and teaching techniques in his Torts, Insurance Law, and Litigation Finance courses (co-taught with Will Marra, Lecturer in Law).
What the students said:
- “Professor Baker loves, loves, loves his students and is incredibly helpful and engaged in teaching.”
- “Really enjoyed how he focused in on students’ interests by adding an extra day of health insurance and bringing in an ERISA guest lecturer.”
- “[V]ery useful insight into a nascent but growing industry; a great source of readings and scholarship that are vetted by experts; interesting discussion throughout the class.”
- “Professor Baker did a great job keeping class engaging through his positive, friendly teaching style. He used a random number generator for cold calls, which I thought was going to be very stressful [but] I found Professor Baker’s cold calls to be the least stressful out of all my professors … I also thought the discussion of policy and insurance throughout the semester made the class a lot more exciting. And finally, I really like how Professor included materials in addition to just cases in our readings (e.g., Damages book, Dark Waters movie, scholarly articles).”
- “Great course, highly recommend. Really interesting area that you may not otherwise be exposed to. Baker and Marra are super knowledgeable and lead engaging discussions.”
William W. Burke-White, Professor of Law, receives the LLM Teaching Award, selected by vote of the LLM Class of 2025.
- “Professor Burke-White is engaging, approachable, and has a great sense of humor that makes learning enjoyable.”
- “Professor Burke-White is an expert in international law, and he is an excellent teacher. He always breaks down complicated theories and cases in a way that is accessible to every student. He’s also very kind and conscientious, making sure to discuss international law with the right framework that’s applicable to today’s current events.”
- “The course successfully demonstrates the relevance and resilience of international law in today’s global economy. Professor Burke-White’s teaching effectively balances theoretical understanding with practical applications.”
Sean Kiley, Lecturer in Law, receives the Adjunct Teaching Award for his Public Speaking for Lawyers courses, which teach students how to design and deliver effective presentations by exploring how people absorb information to learn and make decisions.
What the students said:
- “This course was incredibly valuable [for teaching us how to deliver accurate, logical and engaging presentations], as it offered practical, hands–on experience. For each presentation, I received not only peer feedback but also thoughtful and detailed comments from Professor Kiley, which made the learning experience truly exceptional.”
- “Professor Kiley is extremely friendly, attentive and respectful. He’s also always accessible and overall a great professor to have.”
- “I loved this class a lot! I feel like I learned so much, I really appreciated Kiley’s thoughtful and generous feedback, he clearly cares a lot—I genuinely got so much better at public speaking! One of my favorite classes so far.”
Gideon Parchomovsky, Robert G. Fuller, Jr. Professor of Law, receives the Robert A. Gorman Award for Excellence in Teaching for his exceptional teaching of Property and Copyright.
- “He is a fantastic professor! Clearly passionate about the subject and will offer different points of views on matters discussed in class. His lectures always stimulate interesting discussions about copyright law between students both inside and outside of class. I found myself frequently talking about copyright outside of the classroom with my friends in the course.”
- “Prof. Parchomovsky is a special professor. He is unbelievably dedicated, and he’s one of the best professors at Penn. I highly recommend that you take any class you can with him.”
- “Professor Parchomovsky is an amazing teacher! He is extremely passionate about the subject matter, and I love that he encourages questions and participation. He is also a great lecturer. He explains concepts thoroughly and the class is extremely organized.”
Sarah Paoletti, Practice Professor of Law, receives the Experiential Teaching Award for her superb direction of the Transnational Legal Clinic, the Law School’s international human rights and immigration clinic.
What the students said:
- “Professor Paoletti brings a wealth of immigration experience to Clinic. She is extremely detailed in feedback and supervision, as well as in class.”
- “Professor Paoletti is great. She has the patience to handle our ‘stupid’ questions and ignorance while challenging us to grow as attorneys adopting a client–centered lawyering approach. She is highly involved and connected in the legal immigration space. If you’re interested in doing immigration, you should take this clinic! You will learn a lot.”
- “Clearly cares deeply about the subject matter and this translated well into her instruction.”
Dorothy E. Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, receives the A. Leo Levin Award for Excellence in an Introductory Course for her exceptional “Reproductive Rights and Justice” first-year elective course.
- “Professor Roberts is AMAZING. She is clearly so knowledgeable and passionate about reproductive rights and justice, and brings her experiences to the table in an incredibly helpful way. She was also able to explain complicated legal and sociological concepts extremely effectively to those who may not have the same framework. She does a great job fostering classroom discussion and picking out the best points from students’ contributions.”
- “Professor Roberts is not only an expert in her field, but she also always makes sure to discuss the critical issues affecting each case. Whether it be inequities of race, class, or disability, she gives her students the space and the tools to think about the inequities in the legal system … . She’s one of the best professors I’ve had here at the Law School, and her passion in her work is truly inspiring.”
- “Prof. Roberts is incredibly knowledgeable and engaging. Her class was thought provoking, and I appreciated the class discussion driving forward the legal ideas we were learning. Prof. Roberts also gave a lot of room to tie past cases involving reproductive rights and justice to the topical issues that we are dealing with in courts and beyond today.”
Catherine Struve, David E. Kaufman & Leopold C. Glass Professor of Law, receives the Harvey Levin Memorial Teaching Award, selected by vote of the JD Class of 2025.
What the students said in 2022, when they took Civil Procedure with Professor Struve:
- “Prof. Struve was fantastic. She made learning about Civil Procedure super fun and engaging. I love how kind she was about cold calling and she aways engaged with the students to get us to think on our own and develop our critical thinking skills.”
”- If you don’t inherently find Civil Procedure interesting, Professor Struve makes it as accessible and digestible as it could possibly be. If you DO find Civil Procedure interesting, Professor Struve’s vast knowledge of the intricacies of the rules, their history, the ways in which they change or conflict or cause problems, means she can answer any question and provide a wealth of fascinating detail to keep you occupied forever.”
What the students said regarding her 2023-25 upper-level courses:
- “Professor Struve is an amazing professor––this is my second class with her! She is a highly lucid lecturer and able to clearly explain even the most complex procedural topics. It was a pleasure having class with her again.”
- “Professor Struve takes what could otherwise be a dry, abstract topic and identifies and elevates the real-world issues that are actually at stake. I took this class as a way to ‘fulfill’ a requirement that many judges and litigation supervisors would want to see. I come away from it with an understanding of the infrastructure of how abstract rights become (or fail to become) real in the lives of people.”
- “Prof. Struve has an infectious zeal and depth of knowledge of the material.”