Honorary Fellows
Criteria
Recognizes distinguished historians whose scholarship has shaped the discipline of legal history.
Amount
Recognition
Deadline
February 9, 2026
Election as an Honorary Fellow of the American Society for Legal History is the highest honor the Society can confer. It recognizes distinguished historians whose scholarship has shaped the broad discipline of legal history and influenced the work of others. Honorary Fellows are the scholars we admire, whom we aspire to emulate, and on whose shoulders we stand.
Prior to 2011, there were two categories of elected fellows–Honorary Fellows, who were residents of the United States or Canada, and Corresponding Fellows, who resided and worked elsewhere. To acknowledge the growing international reach of the Society–as reflected in its membership, the participants at the annual meeting, and the scholarship published in Law and History Review and Studies in Legal History–the members of the Society amended its by-laws to discontinue the category of Corresponding Fellows and to create a single category of Honorary Fellows drawn from the world-wide community of scholars of law and history. All Corresponding Fellows were invited to join the new expanded category of Honorary Fellows, and all accepted.
2026 Call for Nominations:
The Honors Committee of the American Society for Legal History solicits nominations of senior scholars for consideration for election as Honorary Fellows of the Society. Election as Honorary Fellow is the highest honor the Society can confer. It recognizes distinguished historians whose scholarship has shaped the broad discipline of legal history and influenced the work of others. Honorary Fellows are the scholars we admire, whom we aspire to emulate, and on whose shoulders we stand. The Society seeks to recognize scholars who are not simply distinguished in their fields, but who also have given back to the discipline and made their fields stronger by creating communities of scholars and scholarship and by helping other (often younger) scholars to stand on their shoulders. In other words, scholars who are as committed to building a future for their fields as they are to studying the past. Commensurate with the growing international reach of the Society, we seek nominations of senior scholars who, collectively, similarly encompass the wide scope of scholarship in legal history.
Nominations should be submitted to Ariela Gross, chair of the Honors Committee, by email (grossa@law.ucla.edu) before February 9, 2026. Each nomination should include a statement of why the nominee merits election. Statements should address the nominee’s scholarly distinction and their citizenship in the field.
The names of the Honorary Fellows, with their year of election, appear below.
(*) Originally elected as a Corresponding Fellow
(†) Deceased