The Connecticut Bar Association (CBA) has announced Professor Jennifer Levi as the 2021 Tapping Reeve Legal Educator Award winner. The award is presented to legal educators who have made significant contributions to the cause of legal education over a period of years and have distinguished themselves as a legal educator of the highest quality.
Levi serves as a Professor of Law at Western New England University School of Law. Professor Levi has dedicated her career to fighting for the rights of women; children; the poor; and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered clients and was a founder of the law school's Center for Gender and Sexuality Studies, which is now part of the School of Law's Center for Social Justice. In addition, Levi is a nationally recognized expert on transgender legal issues and the director of GLAD's Transgender Rights Project litigating precedent-setting cases establishing basic rights for LGBTQ people.
Established in 2012, the Tapping Reeve Legal Educator Award is presented to a member of the Connecticut Bar Association who is a member of the faculty, a clinical instructor, or an adjunct instructor at UConn, Quinnipiac, Yale, or Western New England University law schools, or a member of the CBA who has contributed greatly to the legal education of his or her colleagues. The recipient must have demonstrated sustained commitment and made significant contributions to the cause of legal education in the state and have distinguished himself or herself as a legal educator of the highest quality as a teacher, scholarly writer, or both.
Judge Tapping Reeve, the namesake of this award, was an American lawyer, educator, and jurist. He is recognized as founding a law school in Litchfield, Connecticut considered to be the first formal school of law in the United States offering a vocational curriculum for future attorneys.
Professor Levi will be formally awarded this distinction at the 2021 Celebrate with the Stars virtual event on Thursday, April 8, 2021.
