Nationally Recognized Legal Ethics Lecturer Lisa G. Lerman To Receive the Sanford D. Levy Award
4.18.2023
Catholic University of America Professor Emerita Lisa G. Lerman will receive the Sanford D. Levy Professional Ethics Award from the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics for her lifetime of work. She will be honored during the committee’s hybrid meeting on Wednesday, April 19, at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York City.
“Lisa Lerman has worked diligently throughout her career to establish herself as one of the nation’s foremost authorities on ethics within our profession. She is an exceptional educator, author and spokesperson in addition to being a mentor and role model for an untold number of law school students,” said Sherry Levin Wallach, president of the New York State Bar Association.
Lerman has taught at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law since 1987 where her focus has been on professional responsibility and family law.
“Lisa Lerman is one of the most creative scholars in the field of legal ethics, and her innovative textbook on professional responsibility, “Ethical Problems in the Practice of Law” (co-authored with her husband, a law professor at Georgetown), is the bestselling book in the field. Professor Lerman’s work on legal ethics is grounded in more than 35 years teaching clinical courses in which students represent clients in actual cases,” said Richard Hamburger, chair of the Committee on Professional Ethics.
“She has influenced a generation of law students in the classroom and lawyers, law firms and law schools with her groundbreaking scholarly articles on billing fraud, unethical billing practices and misconduct by law professors. She has been a leading scholar and teacher in the field of legal ethics for decades and is a richly deserving recipient of the Sanford D. Levy Award.”
Lerman has written extensively on lawyers, the legal profession and legal education, with much of her writing examining issues of attorney dishonesty and billing fraud.
She has also served as an expert witness on legal ethics issues and has been a consultant on legal education matters at several American and European law schools.
First presented in 1981, the Levy Award goes to an individual or institution that has contributed the most to the advancement of professional ethics.
