Prof. JaneAnne Murray Wins University’s Outstanding Community Service Award

Professor of Practice JaneAnne Murray has been awarded the 2018 University of Minnesota Outstanding Community Service Award for Faculty. The award is part of a program that honors faculty, staff, students, and University-affiliated community partners who have made significant, demonstrable, and direct contributions to society’s well-being. It is the highest honor the University gives for service to the institution and the community.

Murray is being recognized for clemency advocacy work for prison inmates. For three years, she volunteered with Clemency Project 2014—the organization formed by a consortium of nonprofit organizations to recruit and train volunteer lawyers to represent applicants in President Obama’s clemency initiative for nonviolent, low-level federal inmates. As a member of the CP2014 steering committee, Murray drafted training memoranda, participated in training sessions, fielded calls, emails, and letters from clients, family members, and volunteer lawyers, and screened the eligibility of more than 2,600 applicants for the CP2014 program.

Most notably, Murray brought the initiative to her students. She instituted a Clemency Project at the Law School in the fall of 2014 in which students could assume clemency representations under her supervision. By January of last year, 15 students had worked under Murray’s guidance to craft 35 applications on behalf of eligible inmates and had secured 14 clemency grants from President Obama. In terms of the number of inmates represented, this was by far the largest clemency program with student involvement at any law school in the United States.

“Professor Murray’s work with the Clemency Project was a remarkable success, in terms of both its individual and collective impact,” said Dean Garry W. Jenkins. “Her efforts advanced our educational mission at the Law School, connected the Law School with the community, and helped meet a critical legal need for Minnesotans and the nation. She is richly deserving of this honor, and we are all very proud of her deep engagement with the community.”

Murray will receive her award at a luncheon ceremony to be held March 1 in the Great Hall of Coffman Memorial Union. Previous Outstanding Community Service Award recipients from the Law School faculty include Linus Chan in 2017, Barbara Frey and Prentiss Cox ’90 in 2008, john powell in 2001, and David Weissbrodt in 1999.

Read a Minneapolis Star Tribune article highlighting Murray’s clemency work. 

JaneAnne Murray
Associate Clinical Professor of Law