UIC Law Professor Mark Wojcik was named the inaugural Outstanding Achievement Award honoree by the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Global Engagement. Professor Wojcik, who has a distinguished history of leadership on AALS section boards, was also awarded the Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research Award in 2015 for lifetime contributions to legal writing education.
The Section on Global Engagement’s Outstanding Achievement Award was established to recognize honorees whose impact, recent or cumulative, exemplify the Section’s mission to heighten the benefits of international communication and understanding within legal education. Presented for the first time at the 2022 AALS Annual Meeting, the award recognizes Professor Wojcik’s “invaluable guidance and mentorship to students, colleagues, professionals, and his counterparts at U.S. and global institutions.”
“Mark’s leadership throughout the Section’s history, as well as his individual contributions of authoring the first legal writing text for non-native speakers of English, founding the Global Legal Skills Conference, helping to open the first law school in Bhutan, and much more, made Mark the obvious choice to be our inaugural award recipient,” offered Section Chair John Smagula, Assistant Dean of Graduate & International Programs at Temple University Beasley School of Law.
In addition to currently serving on the Section on Global Engagement’s Executive Committee, Professor Wojcik led the two preceding sections—Graduate Programs for Non-U.S. Lawyers and International Legal Exchange—that merged to form Global Engagement. He served as Chair of the Section on Graduate Programs for Non-U.S. Lawyers from 2002–2003, and again from 2015–2016, and chaired the Section on International Legal Exchange from 1998–1999 and 2017–2018. A 12-time AALS Chair, Wojcik has also led the Sections on International Human Rights (2007–2008); International Law (2010–2011, 2020–2021); Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research (2011–2012); North American Cooperation (2004–2005, 2016–2017); and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues (2008–2009). He is also the current Chair of the AALS Section on Comparative Law and Chair-Elect of the AALS Section on Law and Anthropology.
A prolific writer and international speaker, Professor Wojcik’s dedication and contributions to legal education have been acknowledged throughout his career. In 1995, the CBA and Chicago Bar Foundation presented him with the Maurice S. Weigle Exceptional Young Lawyer Award, and in 2000 he was honored with the CBA/CBF’s Edward J. Lewis II Pro Bono Service Award. The Illinois State Bar Association presented him with the Board of Governors’ Award in 2005. In 2010, he was inducted into Chicago’s LGBT Hall of Fame. Wojcik was awarded the prestigious Burton Foundation Award for Outstanding Contributions to Legal Writing in 2018. In 2021, he won the Civil Justice Scholarship Award from the Roscoe Pound Institute “in recognition of his distinguished scholarship supportive of the American civil justice system.”