AALS Commercial and Consumer Law Section renames mentorship award in honor of Juliet Moringiello

The Association of American Law Schools Commercial and Consumer Law Section has renamed the section’s mentorship award in honor of long-time Widener University Commonwealth Law School Professor Juliet Moringiello, who passed away in February 2025. The honor recognizes Moringiello’s lasting influence as a scholar, mentor and leader in the field.

Now known as the Juliet Moringiello Mentorship Award, it recognizes individuals who have made significant and sustained contributions to mentoring colleagues in commercial and consumer law teaching and scholarship. It reflects Moringiello’s commitment to mentoring, intellectual rigor and scholarship grounded in real-world impact.

Moringiello was widely respected for pairing doctrinal expertise with a focus on how legal systems shape consumer and household financial realities, and for her generosity as a mentor to colleagues across the country.

“It was an honor to participate as the AALS Commercial Law Section honored Professor Moringiello’s scholarship and service,” said Jill E. Family, associate dean for faculty research and development and professor of law at Widener Law Commonwealth. “Her scholarship moved commercial law in positive directions. She pushed leaders to think about how law affects people in their everyday lives.”

Dean andré douglas pond cummings said Moringiello’s influence extended well beyond the classroom and into the professional lives of generations of lawyers. “Juliet Moringiello spent her career lifting students, faculty, and colleagues, with a particular focus on helping women and marginalized scholars see their place in commercial and consumer law,” cummings said. “So many of our alumni are practicing in bankruptcy, commercial, and consumer law because Juliet didn’t just mentor them. She opened doors, made introductions, and created real pathways. Naming this mentorship award in her honor is completely fitting, and her influence will be felt for generations.”

The section also announced the inaugural recipients of the newly named award. The 2026 Juliet Moringiello Mentorship Award will be presented to David J. Reiss of Cornell Law School and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, professor emerita at Harvard Law School.

“Mentorship was something I valued deeply throughout my career in legal academia,” Warren said. “I’m particularly proud of how many young women I taught in my classes that, through mentorship, I pulled into teaching or public service and helped them launch their careers. Juliet’s commitment to mentorship did the same for so many students, and her impact will be felt by generations of lawyers to come. I’m honored to accept the Juliet Moringiello Mentorship Award in her honor.”

Both Reiss and Warren were recognized for their long-standing commitment to mentoring scholars and advancing commercial and consumer law through teaching, research, and public engagement.

The newly named award establishes mentorship as a defining standard within the Commercial and Consumer Law Section, reflecting the principles Moringiello championed throughout her career.