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Students honored Clinical Professor Jeff Ward JD/LLM ’09, the associate dean for technology and innovation and the director of the Duke Center on Law & Technology, with the 2022 Distinguished Teaching Award during the annual D.O.N.E. Awards on Monday.

Ward, who teaches Contracts as well as courses in law and technology, praised his students when accepting the award. “In my case, we might want to call it the Distinguished Learning Award,” he said. “All I do is ask my students to do a lot, and they respond really consistently with energy, lots of learning, and lots of flourishing. For that reason, I just want to say thank you to students for being the people you are – unbelievably gifted, hardworking, kind, always eager to grow. You make Duke Law a very special place to be.”

Student leaders Alyssa Reyes ’23, Adam Golden ’23, and Amanda Joos ’23 also won awards, as well as the student groups National Lawyers Guild, the Latin American Law Students Association (LALSA), and the Fair Chance Project. Senior Academic Assistant Marlyn Dail won the Distinguished Staff Member Award, which was introduced last year.

The D.O.N.E. Awards are sponsored by the Duke Bar Association. Nominations are submitted by students and winners are determined by a committee of students from all three class years.

Benjamin Spencer, the academics chair for the DBA, read from nominations while presenting the awards, including students who lauded Ward’s support outside of the classroom.

“When I hit my mid-semester slump, was feeling unmotivated by school, and didn’t do very well on his final, I went to a meeting with him and couldn’t have walked out feeling better,” one student wrote of Ward. “He reminded me of the importance that lawyers play in our society, what kind of contributions I could make even while in law school, and assured me that everything was going to be okay moving forward. It wasn't a generic speech – he truly cared about me and valued my experience being a positive one.”

Before he came to Duke, Ward taught high school in the Chicago suburbs. He said that a colleague, whom he admired greatly as a teacher, once told him, “You’re really good at teaching gifted students.” He laughed and said that it was a bit like “telling the wheel, ‘You roll really fast and far, downhill.’”

But, he added, “I think there’s some truth to what she said. If we roll fast and far in my class, I think that it’s mainly because of the circumstances, the conditions. The primary conditions we have are just really wonderful students at Duke Law. I mean, like stupidly wonderful students at Duke Law.”

He noted the many accomplishments of the students who also received awards, and he noted that there are many more students like them throughout the Law School.

“If any observer were to come to my classroom and walk away, they’re pretty certain not to say so much about what I did, but they would talk about the students,” he said. “They’d be really amazed by these students.”

Dail, who won the Distinguished Staff Member Award, similarly thanked students and her team when accepting her award.

“I must say that it’s been an absolute joy to work with so many passionate and hardworking students,” she said. She thanked the faculty, the team at the Clemency Project, the Wrongful Convictions Clinic, the Wilson Center for Science and Justice, and the entire Academic Services support staff.

One of Dail’s nominators said, “She is consistently helpful, competent, and lovely to work with…. She cares about us as students and goes out of her way to make our learning experiences as pleasant as possible.”

Three student leaders were recognized during the ceremony, and nominators cited them all for their commitment to service and hard work at building community:

• Reyes received the Outstanding Student Organization Leader Award. She is the president of LALSA and the vice president of OutLaw. One nominator wrote, “In a competitive school environment, she has brought heart, humility, charisma, and care to her leadership roles. Instead of focusing on personal accomplishments, she dedicated her time to building the next generation of group leaders.”
• Golden won the award for Outstanding Contribution to the Duke Law Community for his work with the Government and Public Service Society. “He has fought for public interest education and opportunities for students in an environment that skews heavily towards BigLaw,” wrote one nominator. “Nobody has done more to go to bat for Duke’s public interest community.”
• Joos won the Richard Lin Service Above Self Award, which is given to a student who embodies the qualities optimism, integrity, humility, and generosity of time and energy. One of her nominators wrote, “Her heart for service influences every aspect of her life, from her involvement in pro bono to her enthusiasm for her classmates. She believes in doing what is right, and she is a role model to all who meet her.”

Three student organizations were also recognized for the work they did this year:

• LALSA was recognized for Greatest Role in Building Relationships. Students said they found “mentorship, friendship, and a general sense of community” thanks to the group. Another noted, “I never felt alone at Duke Law” because of the work LALSA has done.
• The National Lawyers Guild won the award for Outstanding Contribution to Civic Discourse for their speaker series on transgender rights. One student said the series “encouraged us to think about the ways in which the law can be used as a tool for good in fighting injustice.”
• The Fair Chance Project received Greatest Service to the Outside Community for offering three expungement clinics this year. Wrote one nominator: “It is difficult, time-consuming work that is almost entirely thankless, but it allows people to get new access to jobs and loans to fully re-enter society without the burdens of arrests, dismissed charges, not-guilty verdicts, and actions taken when they were minors. This organization is small, but the work they do is anything but.”

Maria Bajgain is a communications specialist at Duke Law School. Reach her at maria.bajgain@law.duke.edu.