The American Association of Law Schools’ trusts and estates section has chosen Lawrence W. Waggoner, ’63, the Lewis M. Simes Professor Emeritus of Law, to receive the Browne C. Lewis Award for lifetime achievement.
The award recognizes individuals “who have made significant or long-term contributions to the field of trusts and estates.” Waggoner is a leading figure in law reform with both the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) and the American Law Institute (ALI) in the fields of wills, trusts, and estates.
Waggoner will share the award with John Langbein of Yale Law School. It will be presented at a ceremony at the AALS conference in New York in January.
A nominator wrote that Waggoner’s “academic scholarship, co-authorship of the Restatement Third of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers, and drafting of uniform laws … have shaped the modern law of trusts and estates as no other living scholars have done.”
“It means a lot to me to have been selected to receive this award,” Waggoner said. “It also means a lot to me to have been selected some time ago by the Uniform Law Commission and American Law Institute to do the law reform work that garnered this award.”
“We are so proud of Larry and thrilled to see the AALS recognize his significant influence on his field,” said Neel U. Sukhatme, David A. Breach Dean of Law and professor of law.
Courts and legislatures in many US states—ranging from California to Massachusetts, and including Michigan—have adopted Waggoner’s ULC and ALI law-reform proposals. Law school courses and casebooks nationwide are organized around his law-reform work.
For the ULC, Waggoner served as the principal architect and drafter of the Uniform Probate Code revisions completed in the 1990s. He later completed another round of revisions dealing mainly with the treatment of children of assisted reproduction.
He was also the reporter for other uniform acts: the Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities, the Uniform Simultaneous Death Act, and the Uniform Testamentary Additions to Trusts Act. A symposium honoring his work on the UPC was held at the Michigan Law in 2011.
Waggoner has also mentored younger trusts and estates professors who have become major scholars themselves.
Waggoner practiced law with Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City. As a captain in the US Army, he served from 1966 to 1968 with other military officers from the Air Force, Marines, and Navy on a joint staff in the Department of Defense.
He is a life member of the American Law Institute, an academic fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, an academician of the International Academy of Estate and Trust Law, and a life fellow of the Michigan State Bar Foundation. Waggoner retired in 2012 after 44 years of teaching, 38 of which were at Michigan.