Four Faculty Members Win 2024 Awards for Excellence in Teaching and Service

At a luncheon on April 25, Dean William M. Treanor and Professor Laura K. Donahue, Chair of the Teaching Committee, presented the Frank F. Flegal Award for Excellence in Teaching to Professor Sherally Munshi, the Charles Fahy Distinguished Adjunct Professor Awards to Stuart Teicher and Leonard Bailey, and the Steven Goldberg Faculty Service Award to Professor Peter Edelman.

2024 Frank F. Flegal Excellence in Teaching Award

Sherally Munshi

In the eight years since joining the Law Center faculty in 2016, Sherally Munshi, whose research and teaching focuses on property law, immigration law and critical legal theory, has accrued an enviable record of glowing student recommendations. “Many of us as students do not have the range to interpret and reason through multiple concepts as Professor Munshi can,” wrote one student from Munshi’s Asian American Legal Studies seminar. “However, she is still so amazing at nudging students to think beyond the surface without making us feel small or unintelligent. This allowed so many students to participate without shame and this is due to Professor Munshi’s ability to create a brave space classroom culture.” A student from her Racial Capitalism and American Law class wrote, “Best course I have taken in law school, hands-down.” Another from Section 3’s Property in Time class offered perhaps the highest compliment: “Professor Munshi was amazing. I loved doing my property readings and going to class.”

In accepting the award from Donahue, Munshi noted that as a student, she had never had a woman of color as a professor and has sought to offer students what she had missed during her own academic career. “I am grateful to teach and be the teacher I wish I had.”

Charles Fahy Distinguished Adjunct Professor Awards

Every year, scores of practicing lawyers, many of whom are leaders in their fields, teach at the Law Center as adjunct professors, enabling Georgetown Law to offer some of the most wide-ranging J.D. and LL.M. courses in the country. This year’s Fahy Adjunct Professor Awards were presented to veteran Department of Justice attorney Leonard Bailey and ethics attorney Stuart Teicher.

Leonard Bailey

Leonard Bailey, who is head of DOJ’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section’s Cybersecurity Unit and Special Counsel for National Security in DOJ’s Criminal Division, has been a member of Georgetown Law’s adjunct faculty since 2013. A senior fellow at the Center for National Security, he teaches Investigating Transnational Criminal Organizations and National Security Actors in Cyberspace, and is a lecturer in National Security Crisis Law, a large-scale simulation course consisting of lectures and a week-long in-person series of projects based on potential national security crises.

Students have been appreciative of the learning environment Bailey has created in his classrooms. “From a personality standpoint, Professor Bailey is brilliant and has tremendous academic and professional credentials. However, his collegial approach and refreshingly dry humor made for a truly enjoyable learning experience,” wrote one student. “There was so much respect for the material and for each of us as students that we felt inspired to work harder and stay engaged,” wrote another.

Bailey said he was grateful for the award. “Getting a teaching award from this institution is a tremendous honor,” he said. “This will certainly make grading finals seem less taxing.”

Stuart Teicher

Ethics Attorney Stuart Teicher joined the Georgetown Law adjunct faculty in 2016, and has helped equip hundreds of Georgetown J.D. and LL.M. students with the tools to navigate the ethical challenges of the legal practice through his Professional Responsibility courses. An adjunct professor at Rutgers University as well, Teicher investigates and prosecutes ethics complaints against attorneys on behalf of the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Students raved about Teicher’s ability to make a usually dull required course lively and engaging. “Professor Teicher is a gem amongst Professional Responsibility professors… Funny, engaging, quick-witted and clearly good-looking, he takes boring ABA Model rules and breathes life into them for students to learn. His catch-phrases, rhymes and anecdotes are delightfully memorable, and he possesses a knowledge of different legal fields that enhances his credibility when applying the rules to different legal situations,” wrote one.

Teicher, who has spent 30 years in legal practice, spoke of his winding career path from real estate law to finding his true life’s calling as a professor of legal ethics and writing. Winning the award, he said, was a “crowning achievement.”

Steven Goldberg Faculty Service Award

Peter Edelman

Perhaps no other faculty member has been a more powerful advocate for people living in poverty than Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Public Policy Peter Edelman, who retired at the end of the school year. A member of the Georgetown Law faculty since 1982, Edelman taught courses from first year civil procedure to the Juvenile Justice and Federal Legislation clinics to the Poverty Law and Policy Practicum. The longterm faculty director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality, he was also a guiding force behind the DC Affordable Law Firm, which hires recent law graduates to provide low-cost legal services to community members. Over the course of his legendary career, he also served in all three branches of the federal government. The award is named for Steven Goldberg, a beloved faculty member who died in 2010. In his remarks, Treanor called Edelman a “personal hero” who “never stops thinking how to help the least of us.” Edelman, he said, embodies the true spirit of the Goldberg Award because of his ”extraordinary contributions to the Georgetown Law community, his exceptional dedication to service and his inspiration to all of us as a lawyer and a human being.”