Kimberly Mutcherson, professor of law and former co-dean at Rutgers Law School in Camden, New Jersey, is one of two recipients of the 2026 Deborah L. Rhode Award from the Association of American Law Schools. The annual award honors the contributions, service, and leadership of the late Deborah Rhode — former AALS president and director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford Law School — by recognizing a current or new trailblazer in legal education and the legal profession.
“I am thrilled to receive this prestigious award named for a legend in the legal academy, and I am equally honored to be in the company of the impressive list of past recipients whose work and careers I have long admired,” said Professor Mutcherson.
Professor Mutcherson was the first woman and the first Black person to serve as dean at Rutgers Law. As a scholar of reproductive justice, she focuses on assisted reproduction and abortion among other topics. Throughout her career, she has held prestigious visiting scholar appointments at the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at New York University Law School, the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School, and the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Mutcherson’s edited volume Feminist Judgements: Reproductive Justice Rewritten was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Professor Mutcherson earned her juris doctorate from Columbia Law School.
