The UConn School of Law Class of 2023 has chosen Professor Leslie Levin to receive the Perry Zirkel ’76 Distinguished Teaching Award. 

Levin, who has been a part of the UConn Law faculty since 1994, teaches Evidence, Legal Profession, and Media and the Law. 

“I’m delighted to see the graduating class confer this well-deserved honor on Professor Levin,” Dean Eboni S. Nelson said. “She is a transformational teacher and nationally recognized scholar who inspires her students and colleagues to achieve their personal and professional goals. The law school has benefited greatly from her many contributions.” 

Levin is an expert on the legal profession, ethical decision making and lawyer regulation, subjects she has examined in numerous scholarly articles, book chapters and presentations, as well as in her role as co-editor (with Lynn Mather) of Lawyers in Practice: Ethical Decision Making in Context. 

“I was genuinely surprised and honored,” she said. “I feel so lucky to be able to work with our terrific students.” 

The teaching award was established in 2016 through the generosity of Perry Zirkel, who graduated from the UConn School of Law in 1976. He became a professor of education and law at Lehigh University and served as dean of the university’s College of Education. The UConn Neag School of Education also honors a faculty member each year with the Dr. Perry A. Zirkel Distinguished Teaching Award. The Neag School will announce its 2023 award recipient in May. 

Alumni and current students are invited to nominate faculty members for the award and a committee of graduating students chooses three to five finalists. The entire graduating class is invited to vote to choose the winner, who is presented with the award at commencement. 

Past winners are Mary Beattie in 2022, Julia Simon-Kerr in 2021, Jessica Rubin in 2020, Alexandra Lahav in 2019, Paul Chill in 2018, Richard Pomp in 2017 and Jeremy McClane in 2016.