Emerita Chancellor & Dean Mary Kay Kane Excellence Awards

The annual Kane Excellence Awards recognizes exceptional faculty who have shown excellence in teaching, scholarly and intellectual life, and service. Founded in 2023, the award has been generously endowed by the late Emerita Chancellor & Dean Mary Kay Kane, UC Law SF’s first woman dean.

Students in a UC Law SF lecture theatre with laptops open in front of them.

Teaching Excellence Award

Awarded for pedagogical innovation, student mentorship, or creating classroom inclusivity, two awards in this category recognize full and part-time faculty.

A law journal with a green and red cover on the shelf at the UC Law SF library.

Scholarly Excellence & Contributions to Intellectual Life Award

Awarded for exceptional engagement at conferences, peer mentorship, or the profile and impact of recent publications.

Three students in a lecture with the focus on a women student with long hair smiling.

Service Excellence Award

Awarded for exceptional committee service, innovation in program development, or excellence in the performance of duties.

Nomination & Selection

The 2024 Kane Excellence Awards selection committee was comprised of UC Law SF Chancellor & Dean David Faigman, Provost & Academic Dean Morris Ratner, Associate Dean for Research Dave Owen, Faculty Executive Committee Chair Scott Dodson, and two of the previous year’s winners — Professor and Director of the Indigenous Law Center Jo Carrillo and Associate Dean Jennifer Freeland.

Nominations for the third annual Kane Excellence Awards will open in June 2025. Detailed nomination information and criteria will be provided by Dean Ratner at this time.

An awards ceremony will be held in October 2025 to announce the winners.

2024

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Teaching Excellence Award

Full-Time Faculty

Abe Cable, Professor of Law, Harry & Lillian Hastings Research Chair, Faculty Director of Online Legal Education, and Faculty Director of the Center for Business Law
Heather Field, Stephen A. Lind Professor of Law and Senior Co-Director of the Center on Tax Law

Part-Time, Adjunct, or Visiting Faculty

Marsha Berzon, Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Adjunct Professor at UC Law SF
John Dean (‘79), Mediator and Adjunct Professor at UC Law SF

Scholarly Excellence & Contributions to Intellectual Life Award

Dave Owen, Associate Dean for Research and Harry Sunderland ’61 Professor of Law
Reuel Schiller, the Hon. Roger J. Traynor Chair and Professor of Law

Service Excellence Award

Brittany Glidden, Clinical Professor and Faculty Co-Director of the Social Justice Center
Margaret Greer (‘15), Professor of Practice and Director of Bar Passage Support

2023

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Teaching Excellence Award

Full-Time Faculty

Jennifer Freeland (’14), Associate Dean of Academic Skills Instruction and Support (OASIS) and Professor of Practice
Lois Schwartz, Professor of Practice

Part-Time, Adjunct, or Visiting Faculty

Rebecca Arons, Director of the Legal Writing Resource Center
James (“Jim”) Wagstaffe, Adjunct Professor

Scholarly Excellence & Contributions to Intellectual Life Award

Scott Dodson, James Edgar Hervey ’50 Chair in Litigation, Geoffrey C. Hazard Distinguished Professor of Law, and Faculty Director of the Center for Litigation and Courts
Dorit Reiss, James Edgar Hervey ’50 Chair of Litigation and Professor of Law

Service Excellence Award

Jo Carrillo, Faculty Director of the UC Law SF Indigenous Law Center, Member of the Chancellor & Dean’s Restorative Justice Advisory Board, and Professor of Law
Sarah Hooper (’08), Associate Dean for the HPL Program, Executive Director of the UCSF/UC Law Consortium on Law, Science & Health Policy, Concentration Advisor for the Health Law & Policy JD Concentration, and Professor of Practice