The State Bar of Michigan has given its John W. Reed Michigan Lawyer Legacy Award to Professor Len Niehoff, ’84. He is the fifth Michigan Law professor to receive the award, which is named for a longtime member of the faculty.
The honor “is awarded periodically to a Michigan law school educator whose influence on lawyers has elevated the quality of legal practice in our state,” according to the state bar announcement.
“I am deeply honored to receive this award from the State Bar of Michigan,” said Niehoff, a professor from practice. “It’s particularly meaningful for me because it is named for John Reed, who was a beloved friend, a revered colleague at Michigan Law, the dean who hired me to teach Evidence at Wayne State, and my own Evidence professor at Michigan.”
Niehoff teaches courses in Civil Procedure, Ethics, Evidence, First Amendment, and Media Law, and seminars in Law and Theology and Shakespeare and the Law. He has taught short seminars on a wide variety of subjects, including the history of banned books and the Salem Witch Trials.
He also holds a faculty affiliation with the Law School’s Law and Ethics Program and serves as the ethics adviser to the Michigan Innocence Clinic.
Niehoff has published more than 100 articles in law reviews and law journals, spanning the fields of constitutional law, evidence, litigation strategy, and ethics. He is also the author or co-author of several books, including Rights and Liabilities of Publishers, Broadcasters, and Reporters (McGraw Hill, 1982); Evidence Law (Foundation Press, 2016); and Free Speech: From Core Values to Current Debates (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
His latest book is Meeting Shakespeare at the Bar: Reading the Bard Through the Lens of the Law (American Bar Association, 2026).
Niehoff has been quoted as an authority on legal and policy issues by many major media entities, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, Politico, and National Public Radio. He has written dozens of editorials for leading newspapers and online outlets, including an 11-part educational series for the Detroit News on the Bill of Rights.
Additionally, Niehoff is of counsel to the Honigman law firm and is a nationally recognized practitioner in three different fields: media law, higher education law, and trial and appellate litigation.
The Michigan Law faculty members who are past winners of the John W. Reed Award are Vivek Sankaran, ’01 (2023), Paul D. Reingold (2020), Suellyn Scarnecchia, ’81 (2019), and James J. White (2013).
Niehoff is not the only Michigan Law alum honored by the state bar this fall. David M. Honigman, ’81, received its Champion of Justice Award—“to practicing lawyers and judges of integrity and adherence to the highest principles and traditions of the legal profession, superior professional competence, and an extraordinary professional accomplishment that benefits the nation, the state, or the local community in which the lawyer or judge lives.”
In addition, Erika Bryant, ’98, an attorney at Butler Davis, has been elected to serve as the 92nd president of the State Bar of Michigan.
Bryant was sworn in as president at a Presidential Inauguration and Awards Luncheon on September 18 in Troy. Niehoff, Honigman, and winners of other State Bar of Michigan awards were honored at the same event.