Pace University Professor Bennett L. Gershman was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the New York Law Journal”™s 2022 New York Legal Awards on Thursday, Oct. 6. The New York legal awards honor attorneys who have made an impact on the legal community and the practice of law over an entire career. Gershman is one of 10 distinguished honorees to receive the 2022 Lifetime Achievement accolade in recognition of his decades of service in the field of law and his record of extensive, extraordinary research, scholarship and teaching.
“Professor Gershman has led a remarkable career as prosecutor, scholar and teacher. His pioneering work in prosecutorial ethics has influenced reform in our criminal justice system,” said Horace E. Anderson Jr., dean of the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.
Gershman has been a professor of law at the School of Law since its founding as the Pace Law School in 1976. Prior to coming to Pace, he was a prosecutor in the New York State Anti-Corruption Office, where he argued cases in state and federal courts involving public and political officials charged with corruption.
A prolific writer and author, Gershman has written four books, more than 100 articles in law journals and hundreds of book reviews, essays, and op-ed pieces. His treatise, “Prosecutorial Misconduct,” initially published in 1985 and now in its second edition, has become a preeminent resource for scholars and practitioners seeking guidance on wrongful convictions.
Gershman was named a Pace University Distinguished Professor in 2020, the highest honor the university bestows upon faculty. He has been a recipient of the Law School”™s Outstanding Professor of the Year award eight times in the past 20 years. In addition, his lifetime work was recognized in a special edition of the Ohio State Journal of Criminal law dedicated to and “In Honor of Prof. Bennett L. Gershman” in 2019.
Thomas Hoffman, a lawyer who has spent his career devoted to the exoneration of innocent people, outlined Gershman”™s successful career in an article in the “New York Law Journal,” He said, “Professor Bennett L. Gershman has devoted his career to the ideal of equal justice for all. His body of work and accomplishments are revolutionary. Yet he is humble and unpretentious. When asked to name his greatest accomplishment, he replied, ”˜I was able to retain my integrity.”™”
Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University offers JD and masters of law degrees in both environmental and international law, as well as a Doctor of Juridical Science degree in environmental law. The school, housed on the university”™s campus in White Plains has more than 9,000 alumni around the world. Haub Law launched its Environmental Law Program in 1978 and it has long been ranked among the world”™s leading university programs, with a current No.1 ranking by “U.S. News & World Report.”
