Teaching Awards 2007

For Great Teacher Award winner David Sonenshein, it’s never too late to learn new tricks

David Sonenshein, professor of law and winner of a 2007 Great Teacher Award, is living proof that it’s never too late to explore new territory and reinvent yourself as a teacher and a scholar.

Professor David Sonenshein, winner of a 2007 Great Teacher Award, recently shifted his focus from civil procedure, criminal procedure and evidence to international law, an area in which the Beasley School of Law leads. (Photo by Joseph V. Labolito/Temple University)

Already one of the university’s most respected faculty members, Sonenshein — an expert in deposition skills, evidence and trial advocacy — would have been forgiven for taking fewer intellectual risks when he reached his 22th anniversary as a Temple Law professor in 2006.

He had won the prestigious Francis Rawle Award from the American Law Institute and the American Bar Association for his outstanding contributions to the field of post-admission legal education in 2001. He had earned a Lindback Award in 2004.

And he had won five George P. Williams III Awards for Outstanding Professor, an honor presented by the graduating class to the Law School faculty member “who has made the most significant contribution to [their] law school career”; no faculty member has ever won as many.

Yet after a more than two decades of teaching civil procedure, criminal procedure and evidence to Temple Law students and staking out a position as a national leader in educating practicing lawyers and judges, Sonenshein felt a need to try something new.

Following the lead of Law School Dean Robert Reinstein, who has spearheaded Temple Law’s push to become a forerunner in international law, Sonenshein traveled to Italy to teach comparative civil procedure at Temple University Rome in the Law School’s summer session abroad program.

In the fall of 2006, as a Fulbright Senior Specialist, he taught American criminal procedure to Italian law and graduate students at the University of Parma in Italy. He also traveled to Poland to teach American civil litigation to Polish lawyers.

Since then, Sonenshein has been named co-director of a new joint program with the University of Parma for American lawyers, judges and legal scholars who want to earn a certificate in European law.

“Teaching abroad and engaging comparative law were new things for me; I really found it exciting,” he said. “At Temple Law, our view is that you cannot be an educated lawyer in the 21st century without some international and comparative law background.”

Like all great teachers, Sonenshein is passing his newly gained insights directly to his students.

“I have added an international comparative component to every course I teach,” he said, “and I created an advanced course called ‘Comparative Civil Procedure,’ which compares the ‘civil law’ systems of Italy and Germany with the ‘common law’ approach to civil justice in the United States.”

Seeking novel ways to engage Temple Law and continuing professional education students is nothing new to Sonenshein, who has been pioneering innovative teaching methods for decades.

He designed an evidence course, now used by many of his colleagues, that simulates real-world courtroom experiences.

Along with Law School Professor Anthony Bocchino, he helped develop a civil procedure case book that allows students to engage in experiential learning through the various stages of a simulated law suit as they argue motions and discovery requests, and perform simulated depositions.

Sonenshein introduced presentations with snippets of actual trials and vignettes to the classroom, and even attended acting workshops for lawyers to seek ways to “teach new dogs — my students — old tricks,” he said.

“You have to be open to new influences and new points of view,” Sonenshein said. “It increases the value of what you do for students, and it keeps your teaching fresh. And in the end, that’s what I do. I’m a teacher.”

— Hillel J. Hoffmann