1. At the beginning of each school year, the Dean of the Law School shall appoint the members of the Faculty Excellence Committee, including the faculty members who won the Law School Faculty Excellence Award the previous year, one current student, and one alumnus. In the event that a prior-year faculty award winner is no longer a member of the Law School faculty, the Dean may appoint a substitute member, or may elect to have the Committee proceed with fewer members.
  2. Following the timetable established and published by the Provost, the Dean of the Law School shall declare an “Open Nomination Period” soliciting nominations for the Faculty Excellence Awards in Teaching, Research, Public Service, Rising Faculty, and Social Justice from eligible law school faculty, staff, students, alumni, and other interested constituencies of the Law School. In accordance with LR Policy 403.8, self-nominations will not be considered.  Further, in accordance with that policy, a person may not be considered for an award that they have won in the previous three years.
  3. Although nominations may be accepted for one person in multiple categories, the Faculty Excellence Committee may only select that person for an award in one category in a given year.
  4. During the Open Nomination Period:
    1. Faculty Excellence Committee members shall be strongly discouraged from making nominations;
    2. Faculty Excellence Committee members shall be strongly discouraged from suggesting or encouraging specific nominations by others.
  5. Upon the deadline the Provost establishes for submission of nominations to the Dean, the Open Nomination Period shall expire and the Dean shall forward the nominations to the Chair of the Faculty Excellence Committee.
  6. Upon receipt of nominations from the Dean, the Chair of the Faculty Excellence Committee shall contact each nominator about preparation of a nomination packet pursuant to the instructions and deadlines set out by the Provost.
  7. Upon the request of a nominee who was nominated but not selected for an award in the immediately preceding year, the Dean of the Law School shall also forward to the Chair of the Faculty Excellence Committee the packet of that nominee. In the event such unselected nominees from the previous year wish to be reconsidered, the Chair of the Faculty Excellence Committee shall advise them of the current year’s instructions and deadlines set out by the Provost While reconsideration nominees shall receive full consideration of resubmitted applications, nominators are encouraged to update any prior materials that would present a more current picture of achievements in the category for which the nomination was submitted.  
  8. In the event that the Dean has received no nominations for any one of the five Faculty Excellence Awards,
    1. The Faculty Excellence Committee members may select a nominee for any such uncontested award category;
    2. The Faculty Excellence Committee Chair shall notify such committee-selected nominees and obtain the nominee’s acceptance of the nomination;
    3. Upon receipt of such nominee’s acceptance, the Faculty Excellence Committee shall solicit a volunteer to prepare a nomination packet for the named nominee.
  9. In all contested award categories,
    1. Faculty Excellence Committee members shall be strongly discouraged from contributing supporting materials to nomination packets; and
    2. If a Faculty Excellence Committee member is involved in any way with a nomination or its support, that member shall recuse himself or herself from deliberations on the category for which the nomination was submitted.  In that event, the Chair of the Faculty Excellence Committee shall notify the Dean, and the Dean may then exercise the discretion to appoint an additional member to the Committee for the purpose of considering and selecting a winner of the award in each affected category.
  10. The Chair of the Faculty Excellence Committee, in his or her discretion, may extend the deadline for submitting nomination packets to the committee. The new deadline shall be no later than three business days after the original deadline set by the University Provost. If the deadline is extended, the Chair shall notify all nominators and nominees of the extension. All nominations shall be subject to the new deadline.
  11. Once the nominees for each award category have been finalized, the Faculty Excellence Committee shall cause a list of all nominees to be published on the law school “lawfac-l” listserv, and the Faculty Excellence Committee shall set a date for meeting to select the Law School winners of the five awards.
  12. Once the Faculty Excellence Committee has selected winners for the five categories, members of the Committee are permitted to contribute supporting materials.
  13. Once the Faculty Excellence Committee has selected winners in each of the five award categories, it shall cause a list of all such winners to be published on the law school “lawfac-l” listserv. One copy of each Law School winner’s packet shall be forwarded to the Provost no later than the date specified in the Provost’s announcement.

Adopted by the Faculty on April 13, 2026