Professor Daniel Schwarcz Awarded the University of Minnesota 2023-24 Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education
Professor Daniel Schwarcz, Fredrikson & Byron Professor of Law, has received the University of Minnesota’s 2023-24 Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education. This honor is awarded to exceptional candidates who have been nominated by colleges for excellence in graduate and professional education.
Faculty who receive the Graduate and Professional Teaching Award become members of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers (ADT). This award reflects the University’s strong and enduring commitment to outstanding graduate and professional education at the University of Minnesota.
“Throughout his 16 years teaching at the Law School, Professor Schwarcz has consistently been recognized as one of the school’s best instructors,” says Interim Dean William McGeveran, Gray, Plant, Mooty, Mooty & Bennett Professor of Law. “Additionally, his scholarship on formative feedback in legal pedagogy has promoted more effective instruction both at the Law School and nationally. Finally, Professor Schwarcz has played a leading role in developing and teaching law school classes that contributed to dramatic improvements in the diversity of the law school’s student body and the success of its graduates.”
Professor Schwarcz is an award-winning teacher and scholar. His research principally focuses on insurance law and regulation, spanning a broad range of issues such as systemic risk, regulatory federalism, health insurance, and coverage litigation. A separate strand of Schwarcz's research explores the impact of Artificial Intelligence on legal education, the practice of law, and consumer protection.
In addition to this recognition, Professor Schwarcz's scholarship has received numerous accolades. In 2017, the American Law Institute awarded Schwarcz its highly selective Early Career Scholars Medal, which recognizes “outstanding law professors whose work is relevant to public policy and has the potential to influence improvements in the law relevant to the real world.” He has also been awarded the Liberty Mutual Prize for penning an outstanding insurance law article and has been recognized as one of the most cited legal scholars writing on tort or insurance topics.
Interim Dean McGeveran says of Schwarcz, “I can think of no more fitting recipient of the University’s graduate teaching award than Professor Daniel Schwarcz. Across all five of the criteria for selecting award recipients, Professor Schwarcz excels. His efforts to promote the education and professional development of the Law School’s Students, and of law students nationally, are truly exceptional. I have no doubt he belongs in the Academy of Distinguished Teachers and richly deserves this award.
Schwarcz is regarded highly by his students and has received the University of Minnesota Law School's Stanley V. Kinyon teaching award on three separate occasions, most recently in 2023. He teaches a broad range of classes, including torts, contracts, insurance law, health care regulation, and finance, health insurance law, regulation of financial institutions, commercial law, introduction to law for undergraduates, and judicial opinion writing.
“The most gratifying part of my job is helping talented law students become talented lawyers, Professor Daniel Schwarcz says. “I'm immensely grateful to my hundreds of past students for allowing me to be part of their professional journey. And I deeply appreciate the University of Minnesota for recognizing my efforts to promote more effective legal pedagogy and to instill in my students a passion for the law.”
The University will host an in-person award ceremony on Monday, April 8. Honorees will be featured on the Scholars Walk website.
Congratulations Professor Schwarcz!
