From this morning’s mailbag:
The National Law Review and Wickard have launched the Top 50 Legal Innovators in Academia 2026 awards/recognition.
This initiative will recognize law school deans, professors, administrators, librarians, clinicians, researchers, and other academic leaders who are advancing legal education through innovation, technology, leadership, scholarship, program development, and other transformative contributions. Nominations are open to the public, and self-nominations are welcome. If you know someone doing meaningful work in this space, we would be grateful if you would consider submitting a nomination.
The nomination deadline is July 17, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. EST. Honorees will be announced in August 2026 and featured by The National Law Review and Wickard.
Nomination form: Submit Nominations Here
There is more.
The Selection Committee, which includes the following, will select the Top 50:
- Dean Neel Sukhatme, Dean, University of Michigan Law School
- Dean Stefanie Lindquist, Dean, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law
- Judge Joshua Deahl, Judge, District of Columbia Court of Appeals
- Hon. Bridget Mary McCormack, President & CEO, American Arbitration Association; former Chief Justice, Michigan Supreme Court
- Robert Ambrogi, Founder, LawSites
- Sara Miro, Managing Attorney-Director, KM Solutions, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
- Evan Shenkman, Chief Knowledge & Innovation Officer, Fisher Phillips
- Pablo Arredondo, Co-Founder, Casetext; Innovation Fellow, Legal Information Institute
- Dean Darby Dickerson, President and Dean, Southwestern Law School
- Phil Saunders, Chief Executive Officer, Relativity
- Andrew Woolf, Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, Cozen O’Connor
- Stephanie Goutos, Chief AI Officer, Littler
And a comment from me:
Perhaps a decade ago, I was seated at lunch with one of the premier US law professors studying law and innovation. A major leaguer by any measure. I wondered out loud why so few of our law-and-innovation law professor colleagues pay any attention to innovation inside law, the legal profession, and legal education. This person looked at me as if I had grown a second head. To paraphrase the response, “Why bother?”
