Since Professor Neyers is too modest to toot his own horn, I
wanted to share the wonderful news that he was recently and deservedly awarded
the Canadian Association of Law Teachers' Prize for Academic Excellence at
CALT's annual conference held last week at Western Law. The Prize for Academic
Excellence honors exceptional contribution to research and law teaching by a
Canadian law teacher in mid-career.
Please see below for the text of the presentation given by CALT's
President, Graham Reynolds last week:
It is an honor to present the CALT Prize for Academic
Excellence to a recipient who in the words of their nominators, embodies
the 'best of the profession - a model for the pursuit of humane, intellectually
rigorous, and compassionate legal education': Professor Jason Neyers, who
teaches here at Western University Faculty of law.
Professor Neyers is recognized today for a career that has
reshaped understandings of private law both in Canada and across the globe.
His nominating colleagues describe him as a 'treasured colleague,
teacher, mentor, and a genuinely world-leading scholar.' His influence is not
just measured in his sixteen books or his extensive bibliography but in his
unique ability to reconcile difficult legal doctrines with fundamental
principles.
International colleagues from Oxford and Cambridge describe him as
one of the 'most brilliant minds and communicators among the world's private
lawyers,' noting that his research has enjoyed significant attention in
apex courts across the Commonwealth.
He is also celebrated, in relation to both scholarship and
teaching, for his 'uncanny ability to render complicated or
challenging-to-teach concepts easy to grasp without making them facile or
inexact.'
Some of the most profound testimony about to Professor Neyers'
excellence comes from those he teaches. His former students speak of a passion
for the law that is, in a word, 'infectious.' One student noted that Professor
Neyers 'not only taught our class what the law once was and how it developed
into the way it is, but also asked us to consider how it should be.' This is,
for many of us, the ideal we are striving for.
Inside and beyond the classroom, Jason is widely celebrated as the
'gold standard of a colleague' and a 'vital spark plug' who
facilitates the success of others, often playing an important role in
organizing workshops and editing essay collections to the benefit of the legal
academy as a whole.
Described as 'unfailingly generous' with his advice and teaching
materials, he serves as a 'model for senior colleagues' in his approach to
mentorship. He has been instrumental in supporting junior faculty - both at
Western and internationally - by inviting them to speak at prestigious
conferences and including them as co-authors on high-level projects,
intentionally giving them a 'voice on the international stage' early in
their careers.
Whether he is leading a class of first-year students through the
intricacies of tort law, organizing the international Obligations Discussion
Group, or coaching the King's University College men's basketball team, Jason
is a 'true community builder.'
Professor Neyers, for what your nominees describe as your
'originality, and a curiosity and desire to explain and justify legal doctrine
on its own terms,' and for your tireless commitment to the next generation
of Canadian lawyers, for the example you set for all of us, we are
delighted and proud to present you with this award.
Please join me in congratulating Professor Jason Neyers