“In recognition of Professor Alford’s lifetime of achievement and dedication to the field of East Asian Law as a distinguished scholar, teacher, administrator, mentor, and advocate for the marginalized.”
On January 8, 2026, the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on East Asian Law and Society presented its Jerome A. Cohen Lifetime Achievement Award to Bill Alford JD ’77, Director of East Asian Legal Studies and Chair of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability. The award was established in 2022, honoring Professor Cohen as the inaugural recipient, “to honor an individual who has had a distinguished career of teaching, service, and scholarship” and “who has impacted the legal community, the academy, and the issues that affect the field through mentoring, writing, speaking, activism, and by providing opportunities to others in the field.”
The award was presented at the AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans at a ceremony that featured two of Professor Alford’s former students, Jacques deLisle JD ’90 (Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law and Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania) and Annelise Riles JD ’93 (Professor of Law and Associate Provost for Global Affairs at Northwestern University), and colleagues Mark Wu (Henry L. Stimson Professor Law and Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard) and Section Chair Margaret Lewis (Professor of Law, Seton Hall University). Professor Alford was also presented with a video of messages from dozens of colleagues and former students from across North America, East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
“Bill is unsurpassed in his contributions to the field of Chinese law and his extraordinary support of others — certainly his many former students, present company very much included, but also to many others in academia and in the real world as well,” said Professor de Lisle, in prepared remarks. “In Bill’s scholarly work — and his real-world work as well — we see consistent themes of justice and access thereto … from persons with disabilities to victims of environmental harm in China, to China’s often-besieged lawyers to hapless figures caught up in late Qing criminal justice.”
Professor Riles recounted that Professor Alford encouraged his students to “be careful of orthodoxies, of anyone’s claims to moral superiority, recognize that there is good and bad in everyone, and respect them, helping to foster what is good and having patience where there’s room for growth.”
Professor and founding Director of EALS Jerry Cohen, who passed away in 2025, was warmly remembered at the ceremony. Professor Lewis read a passage from his memoir, Eastward, Westward: A Life in Law (Columbia University Press 2025), in which he spoke of teaching Bill at Harvard Law School and, decades later, seeing him named the inaugural Jerome A. and Joan L. Cohen Professor of East Asian Legal Studies at HLS. Professor Lewis also shared that Professor Cohen had been very pleased to learn that the Section would be awarding Professor Alford the award when she spoke with him last year.
“Jerry,” writes Professor Alford, “was a larger-than-life teacher, mentor, and friend to so many of us within and beyond the field of law in East Asia. The ways in which he blended rigor with humor, broke conventional boundaries in law and life, and inspired others to pursue their dreams live on. It is such an honor to receive this award named after Jerry and as well to hold the chair at Harvard named after him and the no less extraordinary Joan Cohen.”
For more on the AALS award and Professor Alford’s long career, please see these articles from Harvard Law Today and the Harvard Law School Project on Disability (HPOD).