The Law School Student Senate (LSSS) has announced the winners of the 2024–2025 teaching awards.
Professor Eve Brensike Primus, ’01, won the 2024–2025 L. Hart Wright Award for Excellence in Teaching, and professors Howard Bromberg, Mira Edmonds, and Chris Walker also received student-nominated awards.
The L. Hart Wright Award has honored Michigan Law professors for more than 30 years; this year marks the third time additional faculty are being recognized with awards for excellence in legal practice teaching, experiential/clinical teaching, and innovative and inclusive teaching. During the 2025–2026 academic year, each will be invited to give a “Blue Jeans Lecture” to the community on a topic of their choice.
“LSSS is thrilled to honor these outstanding faculty members with awards that celebrate their dedication to excellence in teaching,” said 2L Victoria Pedri, the LSSS president. “We are deeply grateful for their contributions to the classroom, community, and Law School campus.
“These accolades, nominated by our student body, speak volumes about the profound impact these professors have on shaping the future of law through their commitment and passion. Their mentorship and inclusive approach exemplify the Michigan Difference, fostering a learning environment that inspires and empowers students to reach their full potential. Recognizing faculty excellence is a tribute to their hard work and an inspiration for our entire academic community.”
L. Hart Wright Award for Excellence in Teaching: Eve Brensike Primus, ’01
This award goes to a faculty member who exemplifies extraordinary teaching, dedication to students, and the spirit of Michigan Law. It is named after a beloved Michigan Law professor who was renowned in the field of tax law.
One student nominator wrote, “Professor Primus has touched so many lives in the Law Quad. Her class has changed the way that I think about law for the better. She pushes students to think quickly and creatively, has a wealth of knowledge, and her passion for teaching and justice is palpable. Between teaching Criminal Procedure and running MDefenders, Professor Primus does the work of a small army. She is—put simply—stellar.”
Primus is the Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law. She is the founder and director of MDefenders and the Public Defender Training Institute—programs designed to educate and support aspiring public defenders. She also directs the Data for Defenders project, which promotes creative and evidence-based criminal defense advocacy through the strategic and effective use of social science research. Primus has won multiple teaching awards for her instruction in criminal procedure, evidence, and habeas corpus courses. She co-authors one of the nation’s leading criminal procedure textbooks and writes about structural reform in the criminal legal system, with a particular focus on indigent defense reform. The US Supreme Court and lower appellate courts have cited her scholarship.
“Teaching at Michigan Law is an incredible privilege,” said Primus. “I get to help bright and talented future lawyers realize their potential and understand how to push and shape the law going forward. Our students give me hope for the future, and it means the world to me that they would choose me to receive this award.”
1L Legal Practice Professor of the Year: Howard Bromberg
This award honors a member of the legal practice faculty who develops their students’ legal research and writing skills from the moment they set foot on campus as 1Ls.
“Professor Bromberg is a lawyer in the greatest tradition of Oliver Wendell Holmes,” one of his student nominators wrote. “His approach is practical, measured, respectful, and good-humored. Yes, he is great at teaching us the skills of lawyering, but even more important is his example of the level-headed disposition that we are all called upon to maintain as practitioners of the law.”
Bromberg is a clinical professor who has co-authored US Legal Practice Skills for International Law Students (Carolina Academic Press, 2014) with Anne Burr, Cases and Materials on Marijuana Law (West, 2019), and Marijuana Law in a Nutshell (West, 2017). He has also published numerous books and articles on subjects in law, legal history, and biography, and edited the three-volume Great Lives From History: The Incredibly Wealthy (Salem Press, 2011).
“In Legal Practice, we aim to teach an entire preview of the practice of law, with an emphasis on writing, research, argument, and day-to-day lawyering,” said Bromberg. “I am gratified if my efforts to do so have achieved success, which would not have been possible but for the wonderful students and senior judges I’ve had in 2024–2025 and previous years. I’ve received notes from my students that they have forged friendships in my course through our shared exercises and discussions, which will be of benefit to them through their law school years.”
Clinical and Experiential Professor of the Year: Mira Edmonds
This award honors a faculty member who prepares Michigan Law students to support real-life clients.
Edmonds, a clinical assistant professor of law, is the director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic (JJC). She also teaches in the Pediatric Advocacy Clinic and the Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic.
“Mira is one of the most passionate professors I’ve met, and she really embodies her values through the way she teaches,” wrote one of the students who nominated her. “She guides students in the JJC from heavy supervision to independence, with appropriate checks and supervision as needed. Beyond being a superb supervisor, she is very in touch with how student-attorneys are doing. JJC is an emotionally heavy clinic, but Mira values students’ wellness and works with them to develop strategies to take care of themselves while still turning in good work.”
Edmonds’s research, teaching, and practice interests include indigent criminal defense, decarceration, prisoner reentry, and the collateral consequences of conviction, as well as the affordable housing crisis, tenants’ rights, and approaches to homelessness prevention and alleviation.
“I am humbled to receive this award,” said Edmonds. “It is such a pleasure to watch my students grow as advocates and deliver consistently excellent representation to their clients. Getting to support and guide them on that journey is its own reward. Being recognized in this way for doing the work I love is the cherry on top.”
Innovative, Inclusive, and Interdisciplinary Teaching Professor of the Year: Chris Walker
This award honors a faculty member whose teaching style goes beyond the traditional case method—contextualizing the law through history and social science, as well as employing diverse learning media.
One student nominator wrote, “He has been an outstanding teacher, mentor, and friend. The Law School and the surrounding community are a better place for having his influence. I have gone to Professor Walker for problems big and small, and he has always been eager to provide sound advice.”
As a professor of law, Walker’s research focuses primarily on administrative law, regulation, and law and policy at the agency level. He teaches Administrative Law, Civil Procedure, Constitutional Litigation, Federal Courts, Legislation and Regulation, and State and Local Government Law.
His article, “Legislating in the Shadows,” was selected as the recipient of the 2016 American Association of Law Schools Scholarly Papers Competition Award. He also published a book, Constraining Bureaucracy Beyond Judicial Review (Daedalus, 2021).
Walker has worked in all three branches of the federal government, as well as in private practice.
“It was such a thrill to hear the news about this award,” said Walker. “The most rewarding part about being a law professor is learning together with students and playing a small role in helping them become great lawyers, advocates, and people. It’s also an honor to follow in the amazing footsteps of professors Emily Prifogle and Eve Primus in receiving this newer teaching award.”
